Women carrying cartons of oil to the distribution site an IDP camp in Uganda: Current discourse on aid raises the question of when such distributions of food from international organizations stops being helpful and starts being destructive. (Photo Courtesy IRIN)

Nairobi — To monitor donor inflows and development aid to Uganda, the British government has adopted a new blueprint.

It targets social service delivery and hopes to counter the effects of the global economic recession on vulnerable people.

The new approach to development assistance is being driven by the Department for International Development (DfID), the development aid agency of the British government.

It is the result of a review of British aid assistance to Uganda conducted in 2008 and is intended to promote economic stability in the management of donor flows.

The plan provides strong budget support to improve social infrastructure.

It also has measures to tackle the global economic recession and to raise the effectiveness of anti-graft bodies.

DfID's direct budget support is part of the overall $400 million committed by the World Bank and five other donors annually to finance government programmes.

Uganda's total appropriated budget is estimated at Ush7.56 trillion ($3.8 billion).

Of this, 65 per cent is to be financed by the government and 35 per cent by donors, according to the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

The new aid arrangement is expected to build on DfID's achievements in critical areas such as access to clean water.

Dubbed the DfID Uganda 2009-2014 Country Plan, the blueprint is in line with the British government's policy paper, "Building our common future."

The paper was launched in July this year and aims at alleviating poverty during the current economic slowdown.

Last year, DfID installed 60 boreholes for an estimated 18,000 people returning to their villages from refugee camps in northern Uganda.

The DfID says the introduction of output based budgeting procedures will improve the quality of donor funded activities.

"Over the past two decades, Uganda has made commendable progress in reducing poverty and promoting an atmosphere conducive to economic growth.

"DfID says further progress will be achieved by the recent introduction of output based budgeting and reforms to improve the quality and performance of the public sector. The challenge for us all now is to make sure that these reforms translate into real benefits for all Ugandans," said Joy Hutcheon, DfID's director for East and Central Africa.

Under the new aid framework, DfID will commit 35 million pounds (about $50 million) annually in budget support to finance basic services to ensure faster fulfillment of Millennium Development Goals.

The funding is expected to boost healthcare programmes targeted at supply of essential medicines, measles and polio vaccinations, malaria prevention and condom distribution.

In the past four years, DfID has funded measles and polio vaccination for about 500,000 children and provided 700,000 bed nets for malaria protection.