Cameron defends foreign aid commitment, pleads for vaccine funds

Prime Minister David Cameron defended his policy of increasing foreign aid, saying Britain had a “moral” duty to prevent children in the poorest countries dying from preventable diseases such as pneumonia.

Cameron set out his case in an article for the Observer newspaper on the eve of a London conference to raise billions of dollars from developed countries for vaccines and immunization.

While increasing aid spending is controversial at a time when households are facing deep spending cuts, Britain should not use the budget deficit as an excuse to get out of its obligations to the neediest parts of the world, he said.

“I don’t believe it would be right to ignore the difference we can make, turn inwards solely to our own problems and effectively balance our books while breaking our promises to the world’s poorest,” he said. “Instead, we should step up, deliver on our promises to the world poorest and help save millions of lives.”

Cameron will tomorrow host a conference of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, which is seeking to raise $3.7 billion to boost immunization programs between now and 2015. It wants to immunize 243 million more children in 72 countries and avert more than 4 million deaths.

The coalition government’s goal of increasing aid spending to 0.7 percent of gross national income has been criticized by Defense Secretary Liam Fox, who wrote to Cameron last month arguing the target should be an aspiration rather than a legal obligation.