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Bilateral aid better than U.N says Downer
 Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said it was more efficient for Australia to continue to coordinate its tsunami aid directly with Indonesia rather than go through the United Nations. Downer said that regardless of Friday's report revealing corruption in the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq and highlighting major flaws in the global body, Australia was always going to deal directly with Jakarta. "It's not that I don't trust them (the UN), we do put money into the United Nations, but in terms of getting the optimal outcome, we think in the case of Indonesia, being a next door neighbour, the optimal outcome is going to be a bilateral program," Downer told the CNN TV network in London. "Indonesia is a sovereign country, they will make their own decisions ultimately on how money is spent. They are the principal coordinating authority for tsunami relief and rehabilitation. The UN agencies can provide assistance as well and we obviously welcome that and in some cases we provided money for people like UNICEF and the World Food Program. But I do not think, at the end of the day, you can brush aside the responsibility of the individual national governments to coordinate relief within their own countries."Posted by: God Save The World 2005-02-05 |
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