Aid spending target a `receding horizon'

Aid organisations believe the Government's target for increasing aid spending is becoming a "receding horizon", in spite of the availability of "unprecedented" resources, according to a new report.

The Reality of Aid 2000 report, the leading independent survey of the steps Western countries are taking to eradicate poverty, includes a call for the Government to set aid spending on a "specific growth path" in relation to gross national product.

The Irish non-governmental organisations (NGOs) contributing to the report say this is the only way of making progress towards the Government's own contribution target of 0.45 per cent of GNP by 2002. They have also called for the setting of a specific date for reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP.

In recent years, Ireland's aid expenditure has stalled at 0.31 per cent of GNP, roughly the same level as when Fianna Fail and the PDs came to power in 1997. However, Government Ministers have continued to commit themselves to the official target.

They have blamed the failure to meet the target on the booming economy, which has increased the overall figure for GNP, and on a new method for calculating GNP.

The report points out that the gap between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor people within wealthy countries, continues to grow. At the same time, the gap between the per-capita income of the OECD countries and the proportion they spend on aid is also growing.

"The OECD countries have taken the conscious decision to neglect the needs of people living in poverty, despite overwhelming rhetoric to the contrary," it concludes.

A majority of the world's population today lives on less than $2 a day, and one-quarter live in what the report terms "absolute poverty". More than four million children born this year will die before they reach the age of five.

"The fact that more than a billion people are living or dying in poverty is not a tragic twist of fate, but a deliberate turning of heads."

According to the report, the Republic spent £39 per head on aid in 1998, and ranked 10th out of the 21 OECD countries in terms of generosity. The gap between spending and this State's "fair share" was about £20 million in 1996, it estimates.

The chapter on this State, prepared by Concern Worldwide, points out that the proportion of aid spent jointly with aid agencies and other groups has declined. It calls for pro-rata increases in co-financing budget line, as well as more spending on human rights and democratisation programmes.

In a reversal of the trend in earlier years, aid spending by OECD countries rose last year by almost 9 per cent. But much of this goes to the better-off developing countries or is influenced by political or trade considerations. Increasingly, Western donors are funding the cost of caring for refugees and asylum-seekers from their development budgets.

pcullen@irish-times.ie