The Department for International Development (DFID) provided around £930 million in bilateral aid to Asia during 2007-08. Between 2008-11, UK bilateral aid will grow by over 13 per cent. This assistance is targeted at the public service agreement (PSA) countries in Asia—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, and to a lesser extent the Non PSA countries, Burma, China, Indonesia. We also make a contribution through humanitarian assistance and the cross-government conflict prevention pool in Sri Lanka.
Examples include the following:
In India, home to a third of the world poor, DFID is providing £410 million for education between 2003-10. This has helped to reduce the number of out of school children from 25 million to less than 10 million.
In Nepal £20 million is allocated to the Safe Motherhood Programme during 2004-09 contributing to an almost halving of maternal mortality rates in the country.
In Vietnam DFID support to the national poverty reduction programme has helped half a million people escape poverty, increased school enrolment rates to 90 per cent., helped open 4,000 new primary schools and given 600,000 more people access to clean drinking water.
Further information on DFID’s strategy in Asia is available on the DFID website and also in the annual report which is available in the Library of the House and online:
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/