I went to the release of the United Nations Human Development Report at the NSW Parliament House today.
One of the report’s co-authors, Mr Arunabha Ghosh, gave an excellent presentation on aid, trade and security as the essential elements needing attention for progress to be made in achieving the MDGs. I found really striking what he had to say about why inequality matters. Read the report, it’s an important document. Some of the stats I found striking:
- The incomes of OECD (rich) countries grew by US$6,000 per capita between 1990 and 2003, but their aid giving per capita fell by US$1 per capita.
- Australia spends twice as much (as a proportion of our national wealth) on agricultural subsidies for our farmers, as we spend on overseas aid.
- On current performance, the MDG target for reducing child mortality will be missed – and the gap between the target and the current trend means that 41 million more children will die between now and 2015 from preventable causes.
Mr Ghosh also had some gentle prodding for the representative of AusAID who spoke as well, suggesting that we could lift our aid volume as a matter of urgency, complete the process of untying 100% of aid, and taking regional and multilateral leadership on peace-building. The AusAID rep, Mr Michael Wilson, made a decent enough presentation of the Government line (we remain committed to spending 0.7% of national wealth on aid as an ‘aspiration’, our aid contributes to economic growth and governance, blahblah…)
Sadly, you can see just how shallow our real commitment to meeting the MDGs in our region are in AusAID’s glossy pamphlet, A Global Partnership for Development. It’s basically a slick advert for Australia’s aid program. No benchmarks or indicators of how our aid helps achieve progress against the MDGs in the region. No comparisons of our performance against that of other aid donors. No sign of our commitment to increasing aid, in spite of record economic growth and budget surpluses in recent years.
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September 8th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Great blog, Ben!
But, then I might be biased.
Your wife.
September 8th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
These comments are from the persepctive of a total non-blogger, uniniated in the finer arts of blogging, and whose natural (perhaps unregenerated) response is to say “blog off!” when invited to read someone’s blogging on.
But, that aside, having now looked at 3 bloggers sites (Ben, Stephen and Ralph) I’m inclined to think that blogging lends itself to personal musings and reflections more than a clarion call to action. Something less wordy might be more effective.
Steve
September 8th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
Steve – you’ve actually hit the mark with your characterisation of blogging. The email updates and website are where we’ll have the clarion calls to action, because they’re essentially one-way forms of communication (ie. we, the advocacy and development experts, tell you what we do and what you can do to support us.)
Blogs, though, invite others into more personal reflections on some of the intricacies of (in my case) advocacy and open up chances to share stories of campaigning, such as being at the UNDP Report release, or lobbying in Canberra that we couldn’t otherwise let people know about. It’s also a more conversational form, that actually lets people make comments and ask questions – as you’ve just demonstrated.
Can I also recommend you check out the links to Our Word is our Weapon and Owen’s blog from my Links list to see other development blogs in action. I find them really helpful sources of information and argument.
September 8th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
What keeps you going when the voices of the poor and those seeking to represent their interets are constantly ignored – without even blinking?
September 8th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Miriam said:
For me right now, it’s the cracks in the edifice – signs like the UK government really pushing for more to be done on aid, trade and debt. Combine that with stories of hope from the places of the poor, like your stories of the communities in Kenya.
September 8th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
This is a good start. It’s readable, interesting, personal.
Hope it kicks off some good discussion.