HC Deb 23 February 1995 vol 255 cc303-4W
Miss Lestor

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which of the options under consideration in the current draft declaration of the world summit on social development contained in paragraph 88 and concerning the provision of aid resources for priority human needs the Government are intending to support.

Mr. Baldry

We support the aim of increasing resources for basic human development priorities. We welcome the recognition in the social summit draft declaration of the responsibilities of developing countries' Governments to provide services to their people, but we have doubts about the value of assigning specific targets to either donors or recipients of aid, not least because of data measurement and comparability issues. The quality of basic services is as important as their coverage. We shall therefore not be supporting options 1 or 2 of paragraph 88(c) of the draft programme of action.

Mr. Worthington

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the British delegation to the United Nations social summit in Copenhagen will support the proposal to reserve 20 per cent. of the aid given to developing countries by donor nations and 20 per cent. of the budgets of poorer nations for social projects such as improved access to education and health care.

Mr. Baldry

We support the aim of increasing resources for basic human development priorities. We welcome the recognition in the social summit draft declaration of the responsibilities of developing countries' Governments to provide services to their people, but we do not favour assigning specific targets to either donors or recipients of aid, not least because of data measurement and comparability issues. The quality of basic services is as important as their coverage.

Mr. Worthington

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will promote, at the world summit on social development, proposals that require donors to reduce the amount of tied aid in their programme.

Mr. Baldry

No. The world summit on social development has a different focus, and would not be a suitable forum for pursuing aid-tying issues.

Mr. Tony Worthington

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will pursue at the world summit on social development the proposal for a limited sale of International Monetary Fund gold stocks to assist those developing countries for whom multilateral debt is a significant problem.

Mr. Baldry

My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of Exchequer proposed limited sale of IMF gold stocks as a part of his initiative on multilateral debt. We shall encourage participants at the summit to support the Chancellor's initiative.

We hope that further progress will be made when the initiative is discussed at the spring meetings of the IMF and World bank in April.

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