Friday 3 October 2014

Britain cuts aid to Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone

Obviously for Britain Ebola (and certainly some little country in Africa) is not as important as bombing the shit out of Iraq.

Ebola crisis: 'Britain has not abandoned Sierra Leone' – but cuts bilateral aid by a fifth
Reductions in the amount of money sent to help the government of Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone are not damaging efforts to combat the virus, said Justine Greening, as she insisted that Britain remained the country's biggest ally

 Justine Greening addresses a press conference during The Ebola Donors Conference at Lancaster House
Justine Greening addresses a press conference during The Ebola Donors Conference at Lancaster House Photo: GETTY IMAGES

1 October, 2014

Justine Greening, the international development secretary, has been forced to deny that cuts in Britain's bilateral aid programme have hampered the response to the Ebola epidemic.

Britain's bilateral aid to Sierra Leone and Liberia – the money that is given directly to the government – has been reduced by £14.5 million for 2014-15, compared to the previous year. The International Development Committee on Thursday published its report into "Recovery and development" in the two nations worst hit with Ebola, and said the study, began in March, showed "the dangers of ignoring the least developed countries in the world."

"The spread of Ebola has demonstrated the importance that governments of developing countries need to attach to health system strengthening," the report states. "The weak state of the health system in both countries has greatly reduced the effectiveness of the response to Ebola."

Five people are currently being infected with Ebola every hour in Sierra Leone, and over 600 people have died so far.

Liberia is the worst-hit nation, with almost two-thirds of the 3,338 deaths in West Africa.

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But Ms Greening denied that there had been a cut in actual funding.

"The UK is the largest financial donor to Sierra Leone and over the last few years our aid programme has grown in size rather than reduce," she said.

Speaking at a conference in London on Thursday which was called to raise money to fight Ebola, she said that the total amount of money spent in Sierra Leone was increasing – even though the direct, bilateral funds from Britain were being cut. The money – £74 million for 2014-15 – was instead being given to NGOs and bodies such as the UN to spend in the country, she said.

Last year her department planned to spend £81m in the country, but only delivered £68m of funding.

"And I think you can see further support arriving to Sierra Leone in terms of this £125 million package today. So I think there is no question of support to Sierra Leone that is not only broad based and ongoing, but when crisis hits we are prepared to scale it up significantly."

When pressed on why Britain was switching from bilateral support to funding multilateral programmes, she said: "It's important for countries like Sierra Leone, like Nigeria and Liberia to have their health systems strengthened, we've seen that today, and we see how short sighted a view it would be to fail to help those countries develop their health systems."

A spokesman for DfID, the department for international development, defended the decision, and said that Britain's response to the crisis was "something to be proud of".

"I think the important point is that multilateral spend, in some cases, is most effective," she said. "Are we abandoning Sierra Leone? Certainly not. In fact it is the total opposite."

But Sir Malcolm Bruce, chair of the International Development Committee, said DfID had given no explanation for the reduction of its bilateral funding.

"The point we were making is that the bilateral programme has been cut," he told The Telegraph.

"As a Committee we recognise that some work must be done through agencies. But DfID have not yet explained the benefits of this. What was the case for cutting the programme of bilateral aid and diverting it to multilateral? We need to prioritise further funding for health programmes."

And Sir Malcolm added that he was concerned that the £125 million, pledged by Britain to help its former colony, must be used to create a lasting legacy of health care, rather than spent on flying experts in and then out.


"The amount is a lot more than would normally be spent in the country," he said. "And I'd like to think that it will be used not only to bring Ebola under control, but also to have a lasting impact on the health of the country."

1 comment:

  1. I couldn’t agree with Justine Greening more, we may be poor but a £14.5 million for 2014-15 cut in aid cannot be responsible for a drastic change of fortune for Sierra Leone. It's the government stupid and embezzlement with failed policies.

    For example, the government has lost more than $600 million in tax revenue to London Mining Company for extracting our mineral wealth - an amount that is far more than what the British government gave us in aid last year. With taxes from our mineral resources, if only investors can honor their tax obligations, Sierra Leone could be a better country than any others in the West African region.

    Unfortunately, people like Tony Blair are impeding our development. He imposed predatory investors on our country to getting nothing in return for our mineral wealth. How can you expect a poor nation like Sierra Leone to develop when you have these types of investors? Tony Blair is now globetrotting for President Koroma in the name of his non-profit organization from which he collects a hefty income at our expense, is that what you call development?

    Certainly it’s not a development; we need fair taxes for our resources not a hand out from the British government. This is one example of the failed policies our government has implemented in President Koroma’s desire to run our “Country as a business” enriching stockholders like Frank Timmis - running our country like no Sierra Leoneans business. The Tony Blair's, Frank Timmis with third party British Companies negotiating with our government on behalf of London Mining Company to lower their tax obligations only to ask for a cut in return from the same London Mining Company - depriving Sierra Leoneans needed resources – a Robin Hood type operation with predatory and Mafia type connection.

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