The manager’s amendment to the Kerry-Lugar-Menendez-Corker initial aid reform bill, S.1524, passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this afternoon by a vote of 14-3. This was described by Senator Menendez as “one of the most significant pieces of foreign assistance legislation that has passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in decades." -For more information click here.
In September, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated that a commitment of 0.7% of Gross National Income to overseas aid would ‘in future become law’. The Liberal Democrats have accused him of effectively abandoning his promise.
In the Queen’s speech yesterday however, 0.7% was presented as a draft bill, making it highly unlikely to pass through parliament before the next election.
For more information, click here
An article titled “A New Approach to Post War Reconstruction” by Fredric Galtung and Martin Tisne from Tiri, has been published in the Journal for Democracy.
One year on from Accra in 2008, when the International Aid Transparency Initiative goals and principles were decided, the IATI conference in the Hague proved to a productive and useful event.
IATI has posted the progress of the Iniative on its website, and outlined the plans for the year ahead.
For more information, click here
One of the thematic areas on which the DCF is focusing as part of its review of trends in development cooperation is the
strengthening of South-South cooperation. To do so will require addressing three
gaps:
• An analytical gap – through a better understanding of the scope of South-South
Cooperation (SSC) and the provision on a voluntary basis of data and information on
SSC,
• An operational gap – through improved analysis on the support SSC requires – notably
Quoted from the G20 Leader’s summit in Pittsburgh:
