Nigeria Content Online

The
new government in the United Kingdom will directly champion prosperity
for millions of people across the world that are battling against
poverty, disease and injustice, the new UK secretary for international
development, Andrew Mitchell has said.

Decrying the poor
structure of the Nigerian health and child-care sectors, while
presenting grim figures on mortality due to child-birth, Mr Mitchell in
a statement on his assumption of office as the head of UK’s aid agency,
Department for Foreign Direct Investment (DFID), noted that, of half a
million women that die due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth
across the world, around ten percent of them are Nigerians, and nearly
25,000 children die from easily-preventable diseases in the country.
This figure, he claims, has barely fallen in the past two decades in
many regions.

“Clearly, we must
act, and act now, to right these wrongs and end this terrible waste of
human potential” he said. “The people and government of Britain are on
your side, and we will use every tool in our policy armoury to champion
justice, freedom, fairness and prosperity for you.”

Mr Mitchell, who
recently spoke at the launch of Oxfam’s report on 21st Century Aid at
The Royal Society, in London, declared that UK development assistance
to Nigeria will rise to £140 million per annum in 2010/11 with the
development priorities intended at promoting non-oil growth in the
nation’s economy, and more effective spending by the government of
Nigeria on poverty reduction. He, however noted that his country can
only play limited role due to the current economic downturn.

“We can’t escape
the fact that in Britain, today’s economic situation is radically
different from what has gone before,” he said. “The UK has a massive
deficit, which it is our number one priority to tackle,” he said. “We
won’t balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest. We have
resolved, in our coalition programme for government, to honour our
commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid from 2013, and to
enshrine this commitment in law. We will keep aid untied from
commercial interests, and maintain the Department for International
Development (DFID) as an independent Department, focused on reducing
poverty.”

A million aid watchdogs

The minister also
explained that of empowerment will be central in their approach, with
the aim of making “people in developing countries to be masters and
owners of the international development system, not passive recipients
of it.”

Mr Mitchell adds
that other opportunities for empowerment in the programme will provide
power to citizens to hold their governments accountable. This, he
stated, will be achieved with a plan to set aside up to five per cent
of the total amount given to governments to help parliaments, civil
society and audit bodies to hold responsible those who spend their
money.

He also announced a new UK Aid Transparency Guarantee that will help
to create a million independent aid watchdogs to enable people “see
where aid money is supposed to be going and shout if it doesn’t get
there.”