Focus aid on poverty elimination
27/03/09 13:00 Filed in: News Releases
A focus on economic development rather than poverty elimination will mean we don’t focus on some critical problems affecting the world’s poorest countries, Progressive leader Jim Anderton told a summit on the future of New Zealand aid today.
Jim Anderton is a former economic development minister, and Progressive party deputy leader Matt Robson set up NZAid when he was overseas development minister.
“The poorest billion people in the world live in conditions we associate with fourteenth century deprivation. Bringing them out of poverty requires a focus on good government, on transparency and ending corruption,” Jim Anderton says.
“More money is stolen from Africa every year by corrupt governments than the world gives the entire continent in aid. It gets stolen and put in western banks. If we simply stopped Western banks from being used to hold the stolen proceeds of looting in Africa by corrupt political leaders, it would have the same effect as the overnight doubling of aid budgets. A focus on economic development doesn’t even look at this issue - a focus on poverty does.
“A focus on poverty requires a focus on post-conflict recovery. Not much is going to be done about poverty in a country ruined by civil war, where any money that comes in gets spent on strengthening the military. Focusing on these issues is crucial - but you cannot do a good job of that if you focus on economic development alone.”
Jim Anderton says it is profoundly wrong to make assistance to New Zealand companies the focus of our aid effort.
“We don’t give aid to benefit New Zealand companies. We do it because we are good global citizens. Trying to sell more of our exports to the poorest countries is not much of an economic strategy. We are not going to develop export markets for New Zealand by focusing on how much we can sell to the poorest people in the world.
“We should certainly be open to trade with the least developed countries of the world. But trade reform alone, while necessary, is not sufficient.”
Jim Anderton is a former economic development minister, and Progressive party deputy leader Matt Robson set up NZAid when he was overseas development minister.
“The poorest billion people in the world live in conditions we associate with fourteenth century deprivation. Bringing them out of poverty requires a focus on good government, on transparency and ending corruption,” Jim Anderton says.
“More money is stolen from Africa every year by corrupt governments than the world gives the entire continent in aid. It gets stolen and put in western banks. If we simply stopped Western banks from being used to hold the stolen proceeds of looting in Africa by corrupt political leaders, it would have the same effect as the overnight doubling of aid budgets. A focus on economic development doesn’t even look at this issue - a focus on poverty does.
“A focus on poverty requires a focus on post-conflict recovery. Not much is going to be done about poverty in a country ruined by civil war, where any money that comes in gets spent on strengthening the military. Focusing on these issues is crucial - but you cannot do a good job of that if you focus on economic development alone.”
Jim Anderton says it is profoundly wrong to make assistance to New Zealand companies the focus of our aid effort.
“We don’t give aid to benefit New Zealand companies. We do it because we are good global citizens. Trying to sell more of our exports to the poorest countries is not much of an economic strategy. We are not going to develop export markets for New Zealand by focusing on how much we can sell to the poorest people in the world.
“We should certainly be open to trade with the least developed countries of the world. But trade reform alone, while necessary, is not sufficient.”