Cameron urged to swap foreign aid for trade links with developing nations

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London, Sept. 25: British Prime Minister David Cameron is under renewed pressure to control his foreign aid budget from parliamentarians.

Cameron has been urged to solve global poverty by building trade links with developing nations rather than giving huge sums in a ‘sticking-plaster gesture’.

According to express.co.uk, Cameron is set to use a United Nations meeting in New York to challenge world leaders to achieve the much-maligned Millennium Development Goals.

He is expected to insist that despite tough economic times, Britain ‘can afford’ to continue with its massive international-aid budget.

Cameron will also encourage world leaders to be ‘bold and ambitious’ with aid beyond 2015.

“When we make a promise to the poorest people in the world we should keep it, not turn our back on people who are trusting us to help them,” he is expected to say.

According to the report, his comments come amid growing impatience among influential Conservatives to slash the UK’s aid budget.

“If the Prime Minister is going to the United Nations to say the way we stop world poverty is to increase trade and break down trade barriers with poorer nations then that is great,” Tory MP Peter Bone said.

“That is exactly what we should be doing,” he added.

But ‘doling out more cash to developing countries is a sticking-plaster gesture that does not work’, he warned.

The eight Millennium goals aim to eliminate poverty and boost health in poor countries by 2015, the report added. (ANI)