Helping hand or hand-out?
### Eilidh Wagstaff
** The coalition government reaffirmed in earlier in the year that it will safeguard the UK’s aid budget from spending cuts. It will begin to give 0.7% of Britain’s GNI (Gross National Income) to support developing countries in 2013, up from 0.56% in 2012. The 0.7% target is not new; it was a figure first advocated in a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1970. **
It is the backdrop of the government’s austerity measures, with budgets being cut in the NHS, police services and schools nationwide, which make this level of aid spending controversial. Critics of the 0.7% pledge often ask why we should we increase international aid when the UK is struggling to redress its own deficit but with 300 children dying every hour from malnutrition I’d argue rich economies still have a humanitarian duty to help those living in extreme poverty.
There is a significant section of British society that wants to see spending on international development stopped altogether, as a few minutes spent reading the comments section of the _Daily Mail_ website shows.
> **“Mr Cameron can afford to be generous as he does not live in our world of job and service cutbacks”** an anonymous commenter from Cardiff argues.
> **“don’t panic folks, there are still lots of pensioners and disabled people we can take money from in order to keep sending money overseas”** adds ‘Fenwoman’ from Wisbech.
According to the _Institute for Fiscal Studies_ there will be three million children in the UK living in poverty by 2013. There is an argument that, following the double dip recession, Britain should focus on finding solutions for its own problems before it helps other countries, though experts on international development argue that the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
There are pragmatic justifications for increasing our spending on aid. Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary argues:
> “A strong focus on development is the smart thing for Britain to do. You only have to look at the business generated by China and India to see the potential they provide for UK companies as their export markets continue to develop.”
Money is often given to developing countries on the condition that they employ British consultants or contractors to make infrastructure and service improvements. The coalition’s 0.7% pledge is also aimed at conflict prevention as there is a known link between poverty and terrorist violence.
Many British people are angry that taxpayers’ money is being sent abroad when they can see their family’s standard of living falling. Some NGOs, like_ Save the Children_, point out the difference between relative and absolute poverty. Even after the economic downturn the vast majority of UK citizens still enjoy a quality of life far higher than that of those living in less economically developed states like the Congo or Liberia. A country whose average salary is £21,330, however squeezed it might currently be, can still afford to give 0.7% of its GNI to help improve the lives of the 1 billion people who survive on less than $1 per day.
I campaigned with _Warwick Oxfam Outreach_ on the piazza in week seven getting students to sign our petition encouraging the government to make 0.7% pledge a law so that it can’t easily be lowered or revoked by future parliaments. Response was mixed.
One physics student, perhaps joking, perhaps not, said that he thought the best solution would be “to bomb the third world” another calmer objector argued that ‘the UK should make the futures of its own young people its priority’. The majority of people we talked to were in favour of introducing the law reflecting the fact university students are more likely to have lived or volunteered abroad and know the challenges facing emerging economies.
I believe the government commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on international aid is both brave and the right thing to do. The familiar argument that aid is misspent and ends up supporting corrupt regimes has become less valid following International Aid Transparency Initiative Registry launched in 2008.
_Save the Children_ says the extra money made available by the coalition will put 15.9 million children in school, support over 40 million people with the prevention or treatment of Malaria and will stop 50,000 women dying in childbirth; with such life changing benefits I think it would hard not to be in favour of this policy.
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