MP's Committee to examine effectiveness of international aid

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 14th Jan 2008

The parliamentary committee chaired by Gordon MP, Malcolm Bruce is to investigate the effectiveness of international aid in addition to examining UK aid to Africa's most populous country.

The International Development Select Committee has announced two new inquiries into the Co-ordination for Aid Effectiveness as well as the Department for International Development's programme in Nigeria.

Mr Bruce said:

"Nigeria is one of the largest and most populous countries in Africa. Despite oil wealth, poverty levels are high with over 70 million people living on less than $1 a day. Nigeria receives relatively little development assistance per capita although DFID's programme in Nigeria has increased significantly in recent years.

"The Committee is therefore interested in looking at a variety of issues in this complex and influential country and I look forward to learning more about governance, rural poverty, management and transparency of the oil industry and its revenues as well as the UK Government's support for the Nigerian electoral process which we hope to cover in our inquiry."

The Aberdeenshire MP added:

"The Committee's other forthcoming report which is also hugely important is on the co-ordination for aid effectiveness. With many international donors giving various aid packages to developing countries, it can be difficult for recipient to co-ordinate these funds to ensure maximum effectiveness.

"The 2005 Paris Declaration for Aid Effectiveness is an international agreement signed by over 100 Ministers and Heads of Agencies who committed their countries and organisations to increase efforts in donor harmonisation and alignment. We hope that our report will prove informative and useful to the Government as it comes ahead of the High Level Forum on the Paris Declaration in Ghana this September."

ENDS

Notes

For more information on the work on the parliamentary International Development Select Committee which Mr Bruce chairs, please see the Committee's website: www.parliament.uk/indcom