A new aid strategy that will promote British businesses for profit overseas is set to be announced imminently. Can you help us hit our petition target

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Hi John,
A new aid strategy that will promote British businesses for profit overseas looks set to be announced imminently. Can you help us take a stand against this misuse of the aid budget?

In the next few weeks, the foreign secretary Liz Truss is expected to announced a new international development strategy that will prioritise promoting British exports over tackling poverty.

This could mean even more money going to for-profit business in the private sector and to big consultancies encouraging commercialisation.

It’s vital that we raise our voices to say that this is not what aid is for. Aid should be used to tackle inequality, not increase it.

Over 20,000 Global Justice Now supporters have already signed our petition to say this is unacceptable. Can you help us reach 25,000 signatures before we hand in the petition next Friday?
Add your name ([link removed])


** Aid for trade?
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We have been campaigning against this approach to aid for decades; now it looks set to become government policy once again.

When the government merged the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office in 2020, we warned that in the long term we might see more aid money spent to promote British commercial opportunities. Unfortunately, Liz Truss seems set on this course.

So far, we have seen aid money going to for-profit private healthcare, setting up trade shows to promote UK companies, and trying to expand intellectual property rights around the world.

In the 1990s, we stood up to the government when it used aid money to increase UK arms exports in the infamous Pergau Dam scandal. On that occasion we won, but only by taking collective action together.

We are planning soon to publish research demonstrating how damaging this 'aid for trade' approach can be. But we need your support to build pressure on the government and tell them that this is the wrong way to go.

Will you sign our petition and help us reach our target today?
Add your name ([link removed])
I hope that you can join us in taking a stand.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Willlis
Finance campaigner, Global Justice Now

Read more:

[1] ‘Don’t just defend aid, make it just’ ([link removed] ) , New Internationalist, November 2020

[2] ‘The future of aid after DfID: Shocking development projects supported by the UK’ ([link removed] ) , Global Justice Now briefing, July 2020

[3] ‘This is the real reason Boris Johnson wants to give the Foreign Office control of aid’ ([link removed] ) , Independent, 26 December 2019
**
Can you help stop the corporate hijack of the aid budget?
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Aid should be spent tackling poverty and inequality – instead it's supporting big business and lining private pockets.
Regular gifts give us the long-term stability to plan effective campaigns, exposing those who seek to profit from the UK’s aid budget or pushing back against development funds being used to privatise public services in the global south.

If you’re not already a member, will you join today?

Join today ([link removed] 2203AID&utm_campaign=#p:first_name=John&p:last_name=xxxxxx&p:[email protected]&p:activeopt=Yes)
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