Burma Campaign UK welcomes MPs’ call for more aid to Burma

‘Burma is one of the world’s forgotten crisis’ – International Development Committee

The full report can be viewed here.

The Burma Campaign UK today warmly welcomed a report on British aid to Burma,  published by the International Development Committee. The cross-party committee of MPs supported all of the proposals put forward by the Burma Campaign UK.

The report calls for a fundamental change in DFID’s aid policy, including:

• A quadrupling of aid to Burma by 2013, taking aid from £8.8m to £35.3m a year.
• Providing cross-border aid in addition to in-country aid, to ensure aid reaches internally displaced people who cannot be reached through in-country mechanisms because of restrictions imposed by the regime.
• Funding projects promoting human rights and democracy, including exile based Burmese women’s groups and the trade union movement.
• Setting up alternative mechanisms to provide funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB in parts of the country that the 3D fund can’t reach because of restrictions by the regime.
• Conduct a proper assessment of the needs of IDPs in Burma to ensure adequate delivery of aid.
• Working with UN OCHA to improve co-ordination of aid efforts, which are currently “done poorly”.

“The Committee is clearly saying that DFID is not doing enough, given the scale of the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Burma,” said Zoya Phan, Campaigns Officer at the Burma Campaign UK. “The British government must ensure aid reaches those most in need, and if the regime blocks aid to
people because of their ethnicity, then others ways to deliver aid must be found, such as delivering aid cross-border from neighbouring countries.”

In December last year the Burma Campaign UK published a report – Failing the people of Burma? – highlighting concerns with DFID’s Burma policy. DFID has refused to fund cross-border aid, which is the only way to reach some of the most vulnerable people in Burma, and despite ministers stating that the regime is responsible for Burma’s humanitarian crisis, has not funded projects targeted at promoting human rights and democracy in the country.

“The report vindicates what we have been saying about the problems with DFID’s current aid policy,” said Zoya Phan. “If DFID implements the recommendations of the Committee, millions of lives will be saved or transformed. We hope that this report will shame DFID into action.”

The full report can be viewed here.

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