US Foreign Aid Greatly Exaggerated, giving only 0.02%

[Up2Late]

US Foreign Aid Greatly Exaggerated, Says New Study

27 May 2005 19:23:00 GMT

Source: NGO latest
ActionAid International

(c) ActionAid International

ActionAid - USA
Website: <http://www.actionaidusa.org> or
The world's richest nations greatly exaggerate their aid to poor countries – with the US, the worst offender, giving only 0.02% of its income in real assistance, says a study released today by ActionAid International.

The report, which can be downloaded at <http://www.actionaidusa.org/realaid.php> says that some two-thirds of the money donated by the world’s wealthiest countries is in actuality “phantom aid” that is not genuinely available for poverty reduction in developing countries.

Phantom Aid is aid that is diverted from poor nations for other purposes within bureaucratic aid systems. This includes aid that is, among all G7 donations:

• not targeted for poverty reduction, estimated to be worth US$4.9 billion

• double counted as debt relief, totaling US$9.4 billion

• overpriced and ineffective- Technical Assistance, estimated at US$13.8 billion

• tied to goods and services from the donor country, estimated at US$2.7 billion

• poorly coordinated and with high transaction costs, estimated at US$9 billion

• too unpredictable to be useful to the recipient – lack of data prevents an estimate

• spent on immigration-related costs in the donor country; totaling US$1.5 billion

• spent on excess administration costs; totaling US$0.4 billion.

In total, says the study, at least 61% of all donor assistance from G7 nations is phantom aid, with real aid in 2003 accounting for just US$27 billion, or only 0.1% of combined donor income. Nearly 90% of all contributions coming from the United States and France are considered phantom aid.

Says ActionAid International USA Policy Analyst, Rick Rowden, “what this comes down to is that the US government is spending the tax dollars of well meaning Americans on bloated, inefficient, and manipulative programs that do little to help the poor. This is inexcusable when you consider that a child dies every two seconds from hunger somewhere in the world.”
(more at link above)

[SpiralHawk]

1. You mean Bush and his Republican minions are lying again?

I am shocked, shocked, shocked.

And, once again, I feel betrayed by the "leaders" of our nation.

[hedda_foil]

2. This is my daughter's press release!

She's the media director of Action Aid USA. An amazing organization! www.actionaidusa.org

[Up2Late]

3. It looks like it got a Lot of coverage in the NON- U.S. Press

Several stories in the Guardian, Times of Pakistan, and the The French Newswire (AFP), but it looks like only the L.A. Times picked it up here. The U.S. Press Sucks so much.

Also, I don't know if she posted this one, but she might know who did. The links to their web sites don't work, but I fixed them here. If you can, you should let her know, so she might be able to fixed them.

[hedda_foil]

4. US Press Coverage

It is a sad statement on the media. The story will be covered on the Al Franken show this Wednesday. Should be interesting. Can you please send me the link to the LA Times article?

[Up2Late]

5. Well, I just read the L.A. Times story, and it's NOT the same subject

I was going off of the "Latest News Alerts" at the Action Aid USA web page <http://www.actionaidusa.org/realaid.php> But it's about The World Bank and the tragedy of Wolfie becoming President. The other links ARE there at the ActionAid USA page.

[Up2Late]

6. Well most US news Sucks but NPR has been covering this...

...in various forms. I remember hearing about these numbers, but I listen to so much NPR, I'm having trouble finding the exact story. Here are some links to some of the stories:

<http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1031>

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4610021>

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4663327>

<http://www.npr.org/programs/totn/transcripts/2005/may/050526.ross>

[Up2Late]

7. Here's a New article from the New York Times/IHT

("The piddling amount Bush announced Tuesday is not even 0.007 percent (of GDP...") What a Jerk!)

Crumbs for Africa

The New York Times

THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2005
President George W. Bush kept a remarkably straight face Tuesday when he strode to the microphones with Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, and told the world that the United States will now get around to spending $674 million in emergency aid that Congress had already approved for needy countries. That's it. Not a penny more to buy treated mosquito nets to help save the thousands of children in Sierra Leone who die every year of preventable malaria. Nothing more to train and pay teachers so 11-year-old girls in Kenya may go to school. And not a cent more to help Ghana develop the kind of programs it needs to get legions of young boys off the streets.

Blair, who will be the host when the Group of Eight, the club of leading economic powers, holds its annual meeting next month, is trying to line up pledges to double overall aid for Africa over the next 10 years. That extra $25 billion a year would do all those things, and much more, to raise the continent from dire poverty. Before getting to Washington, Blair had done very well, securing pledges of large increases from European Union members.

According to a poll, most Americans believe that the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent(>0.02%)*. As Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist in charge of the United Nations' Millennium Development Project, put it so well, the notion that there is a flood of American aid going to Africa "is one of our great national myths."

The United States currently gives just 0.16 percent of its national income to help poor countries, despite signing the United Nations declaration three years ago in which rich countries agreed to increase their aid to 0.7 percent by 2015. Since then, Britain, France and Germany have all announced plans for how to get to 0.7 percent; America has not. The piddling amount Bush announced Tuesday is not even 0.007 percent. What is 0.7 percent of the American economy? About $80 billion. That is about the amount the Senate just approved for additional military spending, mostly in Iraq. It's not remotely close to the $140 billion corporate tax cut last year.

(more at link above)

*(>0.02%) Is the amount of "Real Aid" the U.S. gave last year, as calculated by the NOG ActionAid, USA. Here's a link their web site.

<http://www.actionaidusa.org/realaid.php >