G8 leaders talk about distributing foreign aid

Group of Eight leaders promised $20 billion in aid to Tunisia and Egypt today and
held out the prospect of billions more to foster the Arab Spring and the new democracies emerging from popular uprisings. Meanwhile, the G8 have committed to more transparency in the distribution of foreign aid, included working towards a public common standard for tracking aid.

“In terms of coordinating aid, and making sure you have huge numbers of aid projects in one area, and then very little aid projects in other area…you can actually coordinate and make sensible decisions about where each resource can be deployed”, said Dr. Amy Pollard, a specialist on foreign aid for the British Catholic aid agency CAFOD.

“It also allows people to scrutinize whether or not aid is being spent on the things its meant to,” she told Vatican Radio. “Whether or not aid is being diverted either by officials in developing countries, or by project managers, or even by politicians in donor countries who might prefer to see aid money being spent on other things.”

Listen to full interview by Charles Collins with Amy Pollard: