Britain has gone on record to say that they will not cut aid to the under-developed world despite the global eco­nomic reces­sion. The Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment Sec­re­tary for Britain said they will also press the other rich nations to do the same dur­ing the G-8 meet­ings in Italy this week.

Britain is going to begin tar­get­ing their aid to sev­eral coun­tries. They named the coun­tries Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nige­ria and Yemen will receive half of all of their aid budget.

From Reuters, we read more of Britain’s goals for the G-8 meeting.

Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment Sec­re­tary Dou­glas Alexan­der said Britain was on track to raise for­eign aid to the U.N. tar­get of 0.7 per­cent of gross national income by 2013 but other coun­tries were lag­ging behind their promises.

Britain will raise the mat­ter at this week’s G8 sum­mit in Italy, he said.

“We will be look­ing to cre­ate the oppor­tu­nity for coun­tries which are off-track to make com­mit­ments that will bring them back on track,” Alexan­der told journalists.

“It is not a sur­prise that the poli­cies of the host will be closely scru­ti­nised at the end of the week.”

Aid groups have sin­gled out Italy for crit­i­cism, with anti-poverty cam­paigner Bob Geldof grilling Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni in a week­end inter­view, say­ing he had slashed, not raised, aid to Africa since 2005.

“I am sorry, we made a mis­take,” Berlus­coni responded, say­ing Italy’s debt moun­tain and the eco­nomic cri­sis had forced the cut.

At their 2005 sum­mit the G8, which com­prises the United States, Britain, Ger­many, Italy, France, Rus­sia, Canada and Japan, promised to more than dou­ble aid to Africa by 2010 and to aim for the 0.7 per­cent target.

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