There have been a number of recent articles in the News Limited Papers that have been highly critical of the Australian Aid Programme and I thought that I should further explain ActionAid’s position.
Before even addressing some of the issues raised in the current debate it is important to note that Australia is not a major international donor to the poorest countries by international standards and this fact is consistently incorrectly misrepresented in the mainstream media.
In Peter Singer’s recent and excellent book “The Life You Can Save” he described how a survey in the US found that a large majority of respondents believed that 20% of the US Gross National Income was being used for overseas aid and when questioned on what would be an appropriate contribution most felt that 10% would be appropriate. This is an interesting situation when one considers the US contribution to overseas aid is a pathetic .02%!
