Vatican official says foreign aid must focus more on creating jobs

Published: 2007-07-05

GENEVA (CNS) -- Foreign investment and development aid must increase and be focused more on creating jobs and improving education in the world's poorest countries, a Vatican official said. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Vatican representative to international agencies based in Geneva, told the U.N. Economic and Social Council July 4, "The question to be posed is not whether, but how additional aid should be given." He said, "Poverty elimination demands an integration between the mechanisms that produce wealth and the mechanisms for the distribution of its benefits." While decrying the fact that most wealthy nations are not meeting their pledges for foreign development aid, the archbishop said the international community also must ask why developing countries are not making greater progress with the aid they have received and with the foreign debt forgiveness they have been granted. Archbishop Tomasi called for more focused aid programs, particularly to create jobs and improve education.

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