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OECD urges increased poverty focus in US aid

07 Dec 2006 23:10:24 GMT
Source: Reuters

PARIS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The United States should pay more attention to poverty reduction in its aid policies and improve coordination between different government agencies providing development assistance, the OECD said on Thursday.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development also said the United States should increase its funding to multilateral institutions.

"Development needs to be accorded the same status as diplomacy and defence and the key importance of poverty reducing within this mandate should be more explicitly recognised," the OECD said in a review of U.S. development aid.

Iraq and Afghanistan came in as top recipients of U.S. development aid in 2005, with the Defense Department distributing 21.7 percent of all aid, up from a 5.6 percent share of the total in 2002 when the last review was carried out.

The OECD praised the United States for its record aid contribution of $27.6 billion in 2005, the largest of any donor.

But this only amounted to 0.22 percent of its gross national income, far below the United Nations' recommended level of 0.7 percent and under the average donor contribution of 0.33 percent.

This put the United States second from last in a ranking of 22 other countries, just behind Greece and beating Portugal into bottom place.

The OECD also said the United States must improve coordination between different agencies to avoid overlap and so that countries can better anticipate the aid they will receive.

"The government is encouraged to develop a more explicit policy on the role of policy coherence for development," it said.

It applauded a recent U.S. initiative to streamline its efforts by naming a director of foreign assistance and reorganising what the OECD described as a "fragmented aid network".

It also said the United States should increase funding of multilateral institutions.

"U.S. government funding of the multilateral system has been flat or declining in recent years. (The OECD development assistance committee) encourages the government to play a stronger financing role in the multilateral system," it said.

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Last updated:Thu Dec 7 23:12:17 2006