FOREIGN AID Nixon proposes new agencies

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 9

FOREIGN AID Nixon proposes new agencies

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, April 21.

President Nixon today proposed the creation of two new foreign aid agencies with authority to spend nearly $4,000 million over the next three years.

Mr Nixon, in a long message to Congress on the future of United States foreign aid, said that the United States could no more ignore poverty, hunger and disease elsewhere in the world than a man could ignore the sufferings of his neighbours.

“The great challenge to Americans of this decade, be they private citizens or national leaders, is to work to improve the quality of life of our fellow men at home and abroad,” Mr Nixon said.

•He asked Congress to overhaul completely the machinery for giving direct aid to individual countries, by setting up an International Development Corporation to provide loans and an International Development Institute to administer technical assistance programmes and conduct research on key problems of development The loan-giving development corporation would have an initial budget of $l5OO million spread over three years. In addition it would have authority to borrow up to $lOOO million during its initial three-year period.

The development institute, the new agency for technical assistance, would be authorised to spend $1275 million in the first three years of its existence.

Much of the money for these two agencies would not be additional funds for foreign aid, since the agencies would take over many of the functions now carried out by the Agency for International Development. Under Mr Nixon’s plan, A.I.D. will be scrapped. In its place will be the two agencies 'he proposed yesterday and two that have already been created by Congress. Hie two new agencies already in existence are the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, to promote private investment and encourage business to participate in the development of poor countries, and the Inter-

American Social Development Institute, which was formed to pay special attention to the needs of Latin America.