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Edits & Columns
LATERAL POINT
Aid generosity lacking in high places
Donor governments appear to be a lot meaner than their people would wish
YRK Reddy
We all know how tight-fisted and clever some of the developed countries have been
in their contributions and management of Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Does this imply that their people are “mean”? Obviously, generosity cannot be
dramatically different, say, between the educated peoples of Norway and the US.
Levels of prosperity or potential economic risks among the donor countries cannot
explain the differences away. This complexity worsens when we note that the
priorities for aid flows are not what aid is meant to achieve. The profile of major
recipients makes little sense, except to the political strategist who may know how to
extract profit from generosity.
The OECD notes with satisfaction the highest-ever increase in ODA to developing
countries in 2004, but the challenges of meeting the Millennium Development Goals
remain sticky. Among the factors that contributed to this increase are the aid to
Afghanistan and Iraq by at least $1.5 billion. The US remained the largest donor in
volume terms, despite its poor show in meeting the UN target of 0.7% of Gross
National Income (GNI) — it was a mere 0.16%. Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark,
Sweden and Netherlands are the only countries that have reached the target. Among
the European Union’s member-countries, Belgium has committed to meeting the
target by 2010, France by 2012 and the United Kingdom by 2013. Sweden has a goal
of exceeding the target, to 1% of GNI, by 2006.
As the statistics may not reveal the quality of the aid, an attempt was made by the
Centre for Global Development last year to adjust for the qualitative aspects, such as
the quality of recipient governance and poverty and penalising tied aid. On such
adjustment, the aid falls to 0.5% of GDP for Sweden, 0.19 for the UK and to 0.05%
for the US. Further, it is estimated that only 40% of the aid actually reaches the target
groups. There has also been an official report in the US, assuring that 50% of the
donations return directly or indirectly to the US. There is much bureaucracy, related
party transactions and connected consultancies that make the actual delivery meagre,
deceptive and often late.
http://www.financialexpress.com/print.php?content_id=99796 (1 of 3)8/22/2005 8:41:36 AM
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Those which receive the highest amount as a proportion of their GNI are the Marshall
Islands, East Timor, Tuvalu, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Sao Tome & Principe
and Iraq, in that order. In terms of volumes, the top rankers for US aid are Egypt,
Russia, Iraq, Congo, Israel, Pakistan, Jordan, Colombia, Afghanistan and Ethiopia in
that order. Evidently, the flows are not in alignment with poverty, hunger,
malnutrition, pandemic disease or illiteracy, but are tampered with other
considerations.
Are the people of the high-income, low• People are willing to give
charity countries as narrow and extractive as
much more in aid than their
the aid levels, patterns and management
countries’ ODA
suggest? Obviously not, as many note the
• Citizens should demand
generosity of the average American,
better alignment of values with
European or Japanese and their greater
rulers on this
sensitivity to global issues. Private
contributions from US citizens and
foundations exceed official donations twice over. A survey conducted in 2001 in the
US revealed that respondents (comprising mostly of common people) believed an
average of 24% of the federal budget was being spent on foreign aid. When asked for
their views, after being told the actual foreign aid happens to be only 1% of the
federal budget, many believed that it was too little. When asked if they would be
willing to match other European countries, by giving $50 a year to halve world
hunger by 2015, over 75% said ‘Yes.’ And most believed that money should be spent
on issues of hunger, disease, poverty, women and children in countries where that
may not necessarily serve other interests of the US.
The results would have been even more startlingly different from the official
approach if the respondents have been from the more educated sections that
understand the connectedness of nations. It is obvious that people in power have
widely different values and aspirations than their citizens. They probably have ‘valuefree’ personal benchmarks. They may revel in their ability to manage perceptions and
appearances, combine strategic interests, and extract ‘juice’ from charity. It is time
people demand better alignment of values on this, between the governing lot and the
governed.
http://www.financialexpress.com/print.php?content_id=99796 (2 of 3)8/22/2005 8:41:36 AM