18 January 2006

ActionAid today urged MPs to take a key step for the developing world by supporting moves to introduce a legal obligation on the UK government to prove its commitment to lifting millions of people out of poverty.

The international poverty bill piloted by Tom Clarke in the Commons, if passed, would require the current and future governments to report to parliament each year on their aid record.

These reports must show expenditure, along with policy aims and outcomes.

The private member’s bill also enshrines in legislation for the first time the target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas assistance.

It has already won cross-party backing from more than 100 MPs, including two ministers, but needs further endorsement by Commons members on Friday in a second reading to boost its chances for success.

Fifty thousand people die each day from poverty-related causes. One child dies every three seconds. Every night 800 million people go to bed hungry. And more than one billion people struggle to survive on less than one dollar a day.

ActionAid spokesperson Patrick Watt said: "This bill offers a vital opportunity to increase scrutiny on Britain to keep the 2005 pledges Tony Blair announced at the G8 summit last summer amid the huge campaign to Make Poverty History.

"Now is the time for our law makers to show they really want to transform the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people."