영국의 대 아프리카 원조 전략 : 쟁점과 이슈

Abstract

UK's foreign aid program has been deeply rooted in Britain's colonial history. In the years following the Second World War and the election of a Labor Government, the goal of aid was to promote the motivation for the British assistance to former colonies and other developing countries during the 1950s and 1960s. However, UK's aid was also driven by the commercial interests, particularly following the introduction of the Aid and Trade Provision of 1977 which ensured that a portion of the British aid was spent on British goods and services. With the election of a Conservative Government under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, moreover, UK's aid flow began to decline throughout the Conservatives' 18 consecutive years in power. Following the election of the Labor Government in 1997, nonetheless, a separate Department for International Development (DFID) was established to maintain and strengthen its focus on eliminating poverty in poorer countries, in particular through achievement by 2015 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Since then, the British Government has attempted to utilize the MDGs as a key framework to guide its international development aid policy toward developing countries, including the ones in Africa. In fact, the proportion of DFID's bilateral program going to low-income countries is at least 90%. Given the fact that UK's aid policy has particularly focused on poverty reduction in Africa among other developing regions since the outset of DFID, this article tries to explore the pattern, style, and characters of UK's aid strategy toward Africa through paying attentions to the motivations for the aid and the main targets for aid at the different interests and levels of domestic and international arenas.