Increasing overseas aid to reduce poverty

This budget provides an additional $2.6 billion of overseas aid over four years. These new initiatives are a major step towards implementing the Government's 2006 Aid White Paper strategy and provide the foundation for achieving the Government's goal of increasing development assistance to around $4 billion a year by 2010.

Sustainable development

Sustainable economic growth is the best way to lift people out of poverty permanently. The Government's new initiatives

therefore focus on supporting sustainable economic development by investing in people, infrastructure and policy reform.

Priorities include:

• $1.1 billion over four years to improve the basic health and education of people in our region, including additional funding to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS
• $506 million over four years to address critical infrastructure bottlenecks, directly supporting increased economic activity

• $173 million of new funding over two years to support economic and policy reform in our region, including through a new incentives programme.

Responding to emerging needs

The Government will allocate an additional $476 million over four years to improve Australia's capacity to respond to natural disasters and urgent humanitarian needs in our region.