The UK Embassy in Vietnam said the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) has announced it is ending aid to Vietnam by 2016 after considering the results of the Bilateral/Multilateral Aid Review, which aims to boost effectiveness of the UK aid programme in fighting poverty worldwide. The plans to redraw the aid map will concentrate efforts on countries where the UK will, pound for pound, achieve the best results in fighting poverty and building a safer world, and where Britain is in the best position to deliver results.
The UK will respect its commitments with Vietnam and continue delivering aid in the next five years of the 10-year Development Partnership Arrangement (DPA, 2006 - 2016) in the context that the Strategic Partnership Declaration was signed last September.
The Bilateral Aid Review showed that Vietnam is now a vibrant and emerging economy, reaping many remarkable achievements; therefore, the UK will end bilateral development programmes in Vietnam by 2016 and redirect aid to poorer countries.
Until then the UK will continue to help Vietnam achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in primary education, HIV/Aids prevention and sanitation. "We expect to flow our aid into emerging issues such as climate change, governance, trade and investment in order to ensure the sustainability of programmes after our aid programme ends. The announcement of the end to the aid programme five years ahead of schedule represents the respect and trust between the two governments, and we will hold further ministerial level discussions to finalise details of development cooperation in the coming years,” said the UK International Development Secretary.
The UK will focus its aid on sanitation in rural areas. This is a real challenge for Vietnam, and the Millennium Development Goals for these fields may not be achieved. Less than 2 percent of the poorest people in Vietnam have toilets and only one out of 6 people in rural areas wash their hands with soap. Many schools and clinics have no latrines. As a result, diarrhoea is the cause for 10 percent of child deaths, and other diseases heighten the rate of malnutrition, especially in rural areas. DFID aid will help build toilets for 350,000 poor people and raise awareness of hygiene in rural communities.
Besides, DFID will create pro-poor trade challenging funds, including the Making Market Systems Work Better for the Poor (M4P) programme.
The UK, through the DFID, has provided non-refundable aid worth 380 million pounds (US$618.7 million) to Vietnam through bilateral programmes since 1992. In addition, since 2006, 19 million pounds in debt relief has been granted to Vietnam through the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative for humanitarian efforts.
Quynh Chi
Vietnamese
