AWARENESS
aid in detail
Poverty will not be eradicated without an immediate and major increase in international aid. Rich countries have promised to provide the extra money needed to meet internationally agreed poverty reduction targets. This amounts to at least $50 billion per year, according to official estimates, and must be delivered now. Rich countries have also promised to provide 0.7% of their national income in aid and they must now make good on their commitment by setting a binding timetable to reach this target.
An immediate annual injection of at least $50 billion is needed per year to allow countries to make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. As much as $94 billion extra may be required if countries are to meet the targets in full. Without proper funding, 30,000 children will continue to die needlessly every day from causes associated with extreme poverty:
8 million lives could be saved every year if minimal healthcare was available in developing countries.
One woman dies every minute as a result of problems in pregnancy or childbirth. Of these, 99% are in developing countries.
A child dies every 15 seconds from water-related diseases.
The developed world has a responsibility to fund international development programmes, however, without far-reaching changes in how aid is delivered, it won’t achieve maximum benefits. Two key areas of reform are needed.
First, aid needs to focus better on poor people’s needs. This means more aid being spent on areas such as basic healthcare and education. Aid should no longer be tied to goods and services from the donor, so ensuring that more money is spent in the poorest countries. And the World Bank and the IMF must become fully democratic in order for poor people’s concerns to be heard.
Second, aid should support poor countries and communities’ own plans and paths out of poverty. Aid should therefore no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change like privatising or deregulating their services, cutting health and education spending, or opening up their markets: these are unfair practices that have never been proven to reduce poverty. Some conditions are necessary to make sure that aid and debt relief funds are spent on poverty reduction, and are accounted for properly. But often rich countries go much further, and demand that poor countries implement a whole raft of economic policies, such as water privatization and free trade, in exchange for aid and debt relief. Such 'policy conditions' are undemocratic, and have often hurt rather than helped poor people. And aid needs to be made predictable, so that poor countries can plan effectively and take control of their own budgets in the fight against poverty.
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