Global Policy Forum

by Joseph Kahn

The link between poverty and terrorism creates an interest in worldwide poverty programs. Although the US wants to fight terrorism it still seem reluctant to increase development aid. As the war in Afghanistan nears a possible conclusion, Britain is putting increasing pressure on the United States to follow the fighting with a worldwide antipoverty program unmatched in scale since the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, lobbied Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill today to increase spending on antipoverty programs globally by $50 billion annually. Mr. Brown said the increase — a doubling of all foreign aid — should underwrite a new Marshall Plan to improve education and health for the world's poorest people.

The United States spends much less on development aid as a percentage of its total economic output than Japan and European nations do. While the Bush administration is likely to devote hundreds of millions of dollars to support economic growth under a new government in Afghanistan, it shows no sign of backing a large-scale increase in foreign aid generally.

Mr. Brown said today that he was confident that he would be able to persuade both the administration and Congress to contribute more to antipoverty efforts because the terrorist assaults indicated a possible link between problems in the developing world and the safety of people in the industrialized countries.

"Today what happens to the poorest person in the poorest country can affect the richest person in the richest country," he said. "Peace in Afghanistan could be the opportunity for a new relationship between developed and developing countries."

Mr. Brown acknowledged that the United States had not offered much support for his plan. But he said he hoped to demonstrate that some well-crafted antipoverty programs now being carried out through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund could be good models for development assistance.

The idea of expanding development aid has gained modest support from some other wealthy nations, including several European countries and Canada, as well as from the United Nations.

The movement has gained momentum, at least in part, because world development statistics show that the least-developed countries in Africa and Latin America have made relatively little progress toward eliminating poverty even as the economies of the wealthiest countries grew rapidly during the 1990's.

The Marshall Plan, proposed by former Secretary of State George C. Marshall in 1947, devoted about $13 billion in aid to help rebuild Europe after World War II. In current dollars, the program would amount to about $88 billion, or about the same amount the entire world spends on all kinds of aid programs annually.

Bush administration officials have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of many such aid programs and have often argued against providing more money through traditional lending agencies.

President Bush urged the World Bank to provide more grants instead of loans to the poorest nations, arguing that poor countries are overly indebted. But he declined to provide more money to finance the grants, which would reduce the amount of money the World Bank has to lend to other countries in the future.

Michelle Davis, a Treasury spokeswoman, said Mr. O'Neill was more focused on achieving results in development programs than increasing aid. "The entire nation will become more supportive of foreign aid when we see results," she said.

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