A friend once posed a question to me “Why are we delivering aid to counties like China and India when they are running space programs?” That’s a good question, is the money the UK Government are delivering for aid actually helping the right people?
The basics of what a country does with its money is very simple: we live in a sovereignty and that means if those in charge do not do their civil duty and deliver goods to their public we vote them out and replace them with someone that will do right by us.
What happens in countries where that isn’t the case? Where the tax payer’s money is worth less to the Government in power than the aid provided by other countries? Africa for example, contains 60% of the global untilled arable land, which in theory should provide the rest of the world with its food and therefore Africa’s own sustainable export economy. Yet we (the rest of the globe) donate over $1trillion for Africa to have 44 countries in the sub-saharan Africa be rated below a 5 on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index – 10 is no corruption and 1 is, well, not a place you want to be. What we see here, is democracy falling apart and rendered useless.
What if we were to empower [one body] to control the global aid from each country and have them deliver the money to the right areas on projects that only focus on those that need it? Would that answer the question…would we understand and accept that these donations are necessary?
It’s been reported that we gave a little over £27m to China aimed at developing their economy and projects focused around climate change. This coming out around the time that China successfully landed the Jade Rabbit lunar rover. India sent their first mars bound space craft at a cost of £45m after we contributed a sum of around £280m in aid, to a country where the average person is still living on less than $1 a day.
So it’s fair to ask the question, were these donations really necessary?
Well that would depend on where the money is going; I am sure everyone will agree that if people are in need, and we can help, then we should. If we have to make a small sacrifice to ensure that people are relieved from poverty then we should, in our own country and beyond. What baffles the public is that we cannot see how our money is helping. If the success was clear then I am sure we can all come together to make reasonable arguments for where the money should go.
The British Red Cross does great work across the globe and is funded by around £200m per year, of which it spends around £137m on charitable activities and the remainder split between investment and costs. No one would argue the work they do is unnecessary or pointless.
What if we were to empower them to control the global aid from each country and have them deliver the money to the right areas on projects that only focus on those that need it? Would that answer the question above, would we understand and accept that these donations are necessary?
If this non-government agency was created to handle all of the global donations and ensure they are put to the best use, the agency could be made up of the top not for profit organisations boards and have people that want to create change in the right way, not for political gain but because it’s the right thing to do. This would eliminate any corrupt governments getting their hands on the aid money and turning it into something outside of its purpose. This agency would be transparent to the penny of where its money goes. This would allow the governments and general public to see where there money ends up.
Outside of any government, we as a population would be able to vote for the PM that promised to give the best amount of aid to secure our help with the global areas of poverty while ensuring that we look after ourselves as well. If our elected official doesn’t use the system properly we vote them out and let democracy take its course.
The overall trouble with politics and the average person is that it appears so complicated, shady and untrustworthy that people have disengaged with the leaders and simply do not understand what is happening at the top.
Let this area be handled by the professionals, those that have true compassion for their fellow man on a global scale. Because lets face it, we certainly don’t believe that people at the top of our political hierarchy have that.