No to foreign aid with unfair conditions – Angara

Sen. Edgardo Angara has called on wealthy countries and financing institutions to stop granting aid that comes with unfair conditions and do away with donor-driven aid that have hamstrung the development programs of the beneficiaries.

Angara made the appeal during a top-level United Nations dialogue on financing for development in New York.

Angara, in a statement from New York, said he introduced an approach wherein developed countries and international financial institutions would increase the level of aid to countries that had ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and were vigorously undertaking anti-corruption measures.

Angara said the “selectivity and uncertainty” under which donor countries had been giving overseas development assistance (ODA) should end.

Angara said that tying ODA with a recipient’s capacity to pay was anti-development.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has lauded the Philippines for its interfaith dialogue, debt-for-development and education initiatives.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura praised important Philippine initiatives that advance greater peace and full development in the global community during a meeting at the sidelines of the 34th Session of the UNESCO General Conference in Paris.

The Philippines has also reaffirmed its commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015.

Acting DFA Secretary Esteban Conejos said the Philippines is optimistic of achieving the MDG because the Philippine Mid-Term MDG Progress Report marks the country’s improvement in achieving the MDGs, topped by the significant reduction in the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty from 20.4 percent in 1990 to 10.2 percent in 2006.           – With Pia Lee-Brago