Liberal Democrats on International Development

Hilary Myers (Liberal Democrat) is the latest candidate  in my constituency to offer her views on international development policy (see also here and here). I am blown away, I really didn’t expect any answers this good. I particularly like these two paragraphs on going beyond aid.

Liberal Democrats do recognise that financial aid is not necessarily the most important or effective way of delivering support in developing countries. Trade also has a vital role to play. We remain committed to increased coherence between UK development, trade, investment, migration and agriculture policies.

Coupled with this, Liberal Democrats recognise the importance of improving taxation and transparency and tackling corruption in the developing world. In our recent paper, Development in a Downturn, we set out plans to reform international financing systems by cracking down on tax havens, improving transparency and tackling corruption – particularly by making it harder for western banks and financial institutions to facilitate that corruption.

Read the whole thing here. Steph Booth for Labour (the incumbent party) is the only candidate who hasn’t yet responded. But she is going to have to say something special to beat this.