In two months, I’m leaving NZ to study development management in London and this is because I’m passionate about eliminating poverty in my lifetime. Not just alleviating, but eliminating it completely.

Recently, Sir Bob Geldof, singer, songwriter and political activist, has been in New Zealand talking about our low aid levels. This has recharged the debate on how much aid NZ gives and I want to add my 2 cents.

New Zealand currently gives 0.27% of it’s gross national income (GNI) to aid. GNI is not the same as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It comprises the total value of goods and services produced within a country (i.e. its Gross Domestic Product), together with its income received from other countries, less similar payments made to other countries. By measuring aid levels as a percentage, we can compare our aid fairly with the level given by other countries with a bigger, or smaller, GNI. Next year, New Zealand will increase it’s aid to 0.28%.

Many years ago, the early 1960s to be precise, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) committed to give 0.7% of their GNI to aid. New Zealand joined the DAC in 1973, and at the time committed to this target of 0.7%. Some 40 years later, the Millennium Development Goals were created and many countries, including New Zealand, recommitted to giving 0.7% by 2015. There’s quite a massive gap between 0.27% and 0.7%.

Now imagine, for a second, that New Zealand had committed to removing waiting lists from the New Zealand health system. There are thousands of people affected by waiting lists and I’m sure we’d all like operations to happen straight away. Imagine that New Zealand committed to this 50 years ago, and then waiting lists actually got longer.

Let’s expand that example. There are over 1.2 billion people (2001 World Bank estimate) living on less than US $1 a day. They simply can’t provide for their own needs – no clean water, no food, no adequate healthcare. They are the poorest. There are over 2.7 billion (that’s coming close to half of the world’s population) people living on US $2 a day. Hell. Their countries can’t provide for them and they need the help of the international community to survive. It’s about survival and community.

So nearly 50 years ago, New Zealand committed to give 0.7% in aid. It was a commitment, a promise. Just in case we’d forgotten about this commitment, we recommitted, with all other members of the DAC, at the turn of the new Millennium to have aid to 0.7% of GNI by 2015. Most other members of DAC have set a timeline for progress in order to get actually meet this commitment. Thus far, all NZ has said is that we’ll try for 0.35% by 2010. So that’s an increase of 0.08% over 5 years (it’s been at 0.27% since last year). If that’s a timeline then I’m not convinced we’ll get to 0.7% by 2015.

We promised this aid. We committed to it, and it’s totally out of order for us to renege on our commitment. What kind of country are we!

Now there are many excuses provided by all sorts of people for not giving more aid. Here’s some of the dominant ones and my response:

· We should give to New Zealand’s poor, and leave other countries to look after their own poor - Three points: a) We committed to give a certain amount of aid; b) Our poorest are poor, yes, but we can’t just ignore the world’s poorest (who are living in extreme poverty, not relative poverty) just because we have poor people too; c) The other countries can’t look after their own poor. That’s the problem.
· We’re just giving to corrupt governments – New Zealand targets it’s aid on the Asia Pacific region, although it gives a little to Latin America and Southern Africa . We don’t give the money to the governments to do what they like with, that would be simply irresponsible. Aid is targeted at specific projects and activities. Aid is also given to NGOs like Oxfam and World Vision who work with their partners in countries to ensure that the assistance actually reaches the poorest. Aid is also evaluated for it’s effectiveness. The DAC also reviews our aid on this account. NZAID, the Government aid agency, provide some of the world’s most effective aid and that’s something we should be proud of. We’re not giving money willy-nilly to corrupt governments.
· Our health system needs the money spent here – We could spend the entire budget on the health system and achieve as much, or as little if you like, as we currently do. Yes, money needs to be spent on health and education and other services, but we can achieve more by spending a little of our money (the target is 70 cents out of every $100, that’s tiny!!) on helping other countries.
· New Zealand and New Zealanders contribute in other ways, which makes up for our lower aid levels – Yes, New Zealanders give a lot of their own money through NGOs. I don’t know exactly how much because it’s hard to collate EVERY NGO’s info on contributions. But, and I hate to go back to this, we committed to 0.7% and the fact that privately New Zealanders give a lot (particularly during disasters) does not mean that the Government can get away with giving less. We also give a lot in emergency relief for things like the Indonesian tsunamis and other disasters. This is over-and-above our aid current commitments and countries facing disasters need this immediate assistance but we still don’t give enough to even come close to our 2015 commitment. The British are also good at giving privately to NGOs and many of them spend time volunteering doing development assistance or emergency relief work. Just because they do this, doesn’t mean the British government should renege on it’s commitment. They even have a timeline for reaching their 0.7% by 2015.

I could go on forever I guess, and this has as much been for me as for you to read. Sometimes it’s easy to forget why I’m passionate about this but writing has helped to remind me of how important this is. The arguments above are not top quality and I could explain better if I had an extra 10,000 words but you wouldn’t bother to read that.
If you feel at all convicted about this, do something about it. You can write a quick letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, even just your local MP. Many National MPs, as far as I can tell, don’t believe in giving much aid. It’s certainly well below tax cuts in the scale of importance. Write to them too, they might be in Government one day and I really hope they don’t lower that level further because not enough people told them how important it was beforehand. Writing a quick letter isn’t that hard but it is really important.

Leave me a comment, or email me at fk.mckenzie@clear.net.nz, if you’re interested in any specific point in this. In many ways this was just a chance for me to rant and rave but it’s also a chance for you to reflect on your life, your needs and what you do about the issues that drive you crazy.