United States to axe South Pacific aid program

United States to axe South Pacific aid program

SUVA, Fiji (Reuter): The United States will end its South Pacific aid program by September 1995 because of budget cuts and increasing calls for help from former Soviet republics, the U.S. regional aid director said yesterday.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said it would close its offices in the Fijian capital Suva and the Papua New Guinea capital, Port Moresby, by Sept. 30 this year and wind up its aid projects in the region by September 1995.

Regional director David Leong told reporters that environmental, health, trade development and primary industry projects would be cut short throughout the South Pacific.

In future the region would have to rely on help from private and voluntary organizations in the United States.

"USAID is expanding its projects to the former Soviet republics," Leong said. "That is causing demands to be placed on the limited budget."

Leong said the U.S. Congress had pressured USAID to cut back. "In a situation where you have high unemployment rates and a recession in the United States, that makes support for foreign assistance that much more untenable," he said.

The U.S. government had wanted to cut the aid budget to the region from US$7.5 million in fiscal 1993 to zero in 1994, but USAID persuaded Washington to grant $2 million to allow projects to be phased out, Leong said.

The South Pacific offices are among the first of 21 USAID offices to be closed over the next two years, particularly in Latin America and Asia, he said.

Apart from former Soviet republics, Africa and the Israeli- occupied West Bank had been deemed most needy of aid, Leong said.