TNAG-0534-FCO40-629-UK-aid-to-Hong-Kong-Polytechnic-and-technical-institutions-1975 — Page 106

CONFIDENTIAL

NOTE OF A MEETING TO DISCUSS AID STRATEGY AND OTHER MATTERS HELD IN ROOM E901 AT 3.0 PM ON MONDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 1975

Present:

Mr D Williams (in the Chair)

Mr R Porter

Mr D Pearson

Mr LC J Martin

Mr CRA Rae

Dr A Russell

Mr

J Windsor (Secretary!

!

Senior Advisers, Under-Secretaries,

Heads of Departments and their representatives

The meeting was called to discuss aid strategy in the light of Mr Rae's circular minute of 18 February, some points about the

This note deals with Frojects Committee and the Lomé Convention. the first two elements.

AID STRATEGY

2. The Chairman said that the Minister wished to see a poverty-

The orientated Aid Frogramme with emphasis on rural development.

"bidding prayer" for the next framework had been drafted accordingly. The question was how to maintain the momentum of the Frogramme whilst necessary preparations to implement the Minister's policy were under- taken. Senior management thought this could best be done by concentrating the changes on the unallocated surplus in the Programme.

3. When the Minister's paper on Aid Strategy had been discussed at the OPD meeting on 20 January, all the usual considerations had been advanced by the other Ministers present, eg political, trade, promotion of exports of capital goods, etc, and they had not been excluded in the Minister's own paper. In summing up, the Prime Minister had said that the meeting endorsed the strategy but in determining detailed allocations the Minister of Overseas Development would take into account the comments made by the other Ministers. This could be interpreted to mean that the Minister was to have the last word, but it was open to other departments to advance their own arguments during discussion of the allocations.

4.

Further guidance would in due course be sought from the Minister on the way in which the shift in strategy was to be pursued, but the following seemed the relevant points to be applied at this stage in interpreting strategy and in replying to the Framework "bidding prayer" within the time scale laid down:

(1) The main concern of the Frogramme for the future would be with poverty although other considerations would continue to be taken into account. Broadly speaking, a programme increasingly directed to improving the productive capacity of the rural poor was the aim. One way of promoting this would be to follow the American pattern of a detailed sectoral approach

CONFIDENTIAL

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