The Issue of International Development within Tony Blair’s Policy of New Labour Party

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to present phenomena and main directions of Tony Blair's government policy on international development. His political vision was significantly conscious about need to make world's development more equal. Undoubtedly Blair's involvement in area of uneven world's development was directed by his interest in making Britain more influential on wide, international arena. But it should be emphasized that UK under New Labour Government was really prepared to reach needs of poorest countries in world.Keywords: development, globalization, New Labour Party, Millennium Development Goals, poverty, Africa.IntroductionThere has not been a British government that could ignore issues of international development. The United Kingdom's history, Commonwealth associations, reality of free market economy, migrations, individual and personal connections, and most of all, a deep concern of many citizens for humanitarian action can prove that fact. But still, at beginning of last decade of twentieth century Britain's Conservative Government had been proving their traditional attitude towards trade on global market and accepting idea of depth reduction for poorest countries. In fact, it had not shown a meaningful concern for policy of international development. The main reason was their program of aid which in real terms occurred to be slowly turning down. In some cases government's policy relating to issues of international development had been found to have acted not completely legally. The Pergau Dam project in Malaysia might be a good example. It was often called the most controversial mission in history of British aid. The excessively costly dam was financed with money of British taxpayers in order to support a major arms deal, despite opposition raised by civil servants in Foreign Office and voice of international community.Actually, looking more broadly, neither UK nor other OECD countries would pay enough attention to development issues at those times. This abandonment stimulated The Development Assistance Committee within OECD to work out some basic directions. In 1996 an important document was published under title Shaping Twenty - first Century. The role of Development Cooperation (Shaping Twenty..., 1996). During general election in 1997 British Labour Party promised to make issue of unequal development one of main targets of their international policy.The following paper is an attempt to point out main directions of British New Labour's policy within area of unequal development. The article has a descriptive character and its method is based on documents and literature of subject. The structure and contents of paper were built on published articles, books, party documents and other resources. The notion of New Labour Party is rather affiliated with Tony Blair's vision of social democracy in UK.Dilemmas of world's unequal developmentIt is an undeniable fact that world is still facing a dangerous threat of unsustainable development that is causing exploitation of natural resources, increased pollution and changes in habitats. But it is also creating serious social problems that are being intensified by inequalities in health, wealth, education, and employment. Those damages usually risk poorest people at first. The following statistics show facts of unequal global development. Half of world - over 3 billion people - live on less than $2.00 per day. 30,000 children die each day because of poverty - almost 11 million children under age of 5 each year. About 40 million people live with HIV and over 3 million die from AIDS each year; approximately 3,900 children die each day because of a lack of drinking water and sanitation. Global life expectancy is 65 years compared with UK average of 78. …