DATA Responds To UK Budget Announcement On Increased Spending For Environmental Protection In Africa

03.21.07

DATA's Executive Director Jamie Drummond said today "Africa will be hit hardest and earliest by climate change. DATA welcomes today's announcement of funding for the protection of central African rainforest and also for wider poverty reduction through care for the environment.

Africa is also a continent shell-shocked by AIDS. 38 million children are missing from primary school and 300 million people live on less than a dollar a day.

We know that aid and debt cancellation are a major part of the solution: they have already put more than one million Africans on anti-AIDS treatment and funded school places for an extra 20 million African children.

We call on the Chancellor to follow today's new financing announcement with a Comprehensive Spending Review settlement for the Department for International Development that would enable the UK to keep its promise to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid by the financial year 2012/2013."