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Financial aid to other countries
Frequently in the news and on these pages there are references to money being sent overseas as aid to other countries. Today's news refers to 'the UK's promise' to spend 0.7% of its gross national income to overseas aid. I'm not wanting to be uncharitable, but what is the background to all this? Are we trying to make other countries 'obligated' to us for some reason?
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I do think that the UK should give foreign aid. Just not to countries who harbour terrorists, have nuclear weapons and spend vast amounts of their money on military hardware whilst effectively ignoring their own massive poverty problem.
Huderon suggests that we should give aid in order to give their kids a better education by setting up schools which don't teach hard-line fundamentalist religious philosophy. I agree. Unfortunately, the money we send in aid is out of our sphere of influence once it has been received – the recipient country can spend that money on anything they see fit. Even if we stipulate that certain aid monies should be spent on x, y and z (as SandyRoe suggests), there is nothing to stop the recipient country from performing a little bit of financial wizardry that on paper looks like they're fulfilling their obligations.
Rather like the UK Road Tax, the money is ostensibly funnelled into the maintenance of the country's highway infrastructure. In reality, this money simply goes into the 'pot' and is used for whatever purpose is deemed necessary by the Government.
In short, yes we should give financial aid to foreign countries.
But only to those countries we can be relatively sure are not actively engaging in or are sympathetic to terrorism against the UK or its allies. The current Pakistan Government fails on both counts.
Huderon suggests that we should give aid in order to give their kids a better education by setting up schools which don't teach hard-line fundamentalist religious philosophy. I agree. Unfortunately, the money we send in aid is out of our sphere of influence once it has been received – the recipient country can spend that money on anything they see fit. Even if we stipulate that certain aid monies should be spent on x, y and z (as SandyRoe suggests), there is nothing to stop the recipient country from performing a little bit of financial wizardry that on paper looks like they're fulfilling their obligations.
Rather like the UK Road Tax, the money is ostensibly funnelled into the maintenance of the country's highway infrastructure. In reality, this money simply goes into the 'pot' and is used for whatever purpose is deemed necessary by the Government.
In short, yes we should give financial aid to foreign countries.
But only to those countries we can be relatively sure are not actively engaging in or are sympathetic to terrorism against the UK or its allies. The current Pakistan Government fails on both counts.
Just handing over huge sums of money to these so called undeveloped countries ie India and Pakistan is not the answer.
Since on paper both these countries are just as well off as Britain, their problem being they have their priorities all wrong, they will spend on nuclear weapons and entering into the space race, yet their peoples starve.
Better for these such countries to be condemned by the rest of the world and forced to take a more humane concern for their inhabitants.
Since on paper both these countries are just as well off as Britain, their problem being they have their priorities all wrong, they will spend on nuclear weapons and entering into the space race, yet their peoples starve.
Better for these such countries to be condemned by the rest of the world and forced to take a more humane concern for their inhabitants.
The UK is not the most generous when it comes to giving aid, as this chart shows.
http://upload.wikimed...4/45/2006_ODA_GNI.png
Ireland gives more than us, as a per centage (not much more).
We Brits seems to believe we are the only country that give international aid and the only country that has illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
http://upload.wikimed...4/45/2006_ODA_GNI.png
Ireland gives more than us, as a per centage (not much more).
We Brits seems to believe we are the only country that give international aid and the only country that has illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.
""why do we insist on taking immigrants from third world over populated countries""
Gromit,I did not make up the comment, neither did I copy it verbatim, but a recollection of one of the readers snippets in the letters page.
Key words and points::, immigrants, countries with large populations, coming here, and producing the same
Gromit,I did not make up the comment, neither did I copy it verbatim, but a recollection of one of the readers snippets in the letters page.
Key words and points::, immigrants, countries with large populations, coming here, and producing the same
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