Category: Grantmaking

UK’s foreign aid wasted on countries that don’t need it?

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Britain should give a bigger slice of its international aid to the poorest nations, say campaigners.

Just 38% of the £12billion aid budget went to the 48 least developed countries last year, said development pressure group One.

One believes that if every donor country boosted the share earmarked for the poorest countries to 50%, an extra £24billion would have been available to those who need it most.

Critics have accused the UK Government of showering cash on countries which do not need it, in a bid to meet a target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid. Campaigners believe the money should be better targeted.

One also wants a bigger focus on women and girls in developing countries, with a Poverty is Sexist campaign backed by Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban.

One’s global policy director Eloise Todd said: “We won’t see an end to extreme poverty unless leaders shift focus to the poorest countries and the poorest people, especially girls and women.”

[The Mirror]

Canadian foreign aid to remain at 2003 levels?

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In the 528-page Canadian federal budget released Tuesday, there was one notable absence: any figure for foreign aid.

Aid groups can only hope that the foreign aid budget will remain flat. “We’re assuming that it’s currently frozen,” said Fraser Reilly-King, a senior policy analyst at the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. “It could be frozen, or it could continue to decline.”

Since 2011, Canada’s aid spending has dropped by $660 million — almost $200 million more than the 2012 budget projected, according to the CCIC.

The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) calculates the foreign aid spending by 29 wealthy nations and reported earlier this year that Canada’s aid budget as a proportion of its Gross National Income has dropped to 0.24 per cent. Only three years ago, it was 0.34 per cent of GNI — a drop of almost a third.

The last time Canada’s aid spending was this low was back in 2003, just after the Millenium Development Goals were adopted.

[Toronto Star]

The United Arab Emirates recognized as the world’s top humanitarian donor

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The United Arab Emirates has been named as the world’s top humanitarian donor of the year 2013, after it offered 5.89 Billion US dollars in foreign aid that year, reaching out in more than 140 countries around the world through 38 donor groups.

The announcement was made by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an organization dedicated to promoting policies which improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The Committee noted in its yearly report that up to 93 percent of the UAE’s foreign aid were in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA), making 1.33 percent of the country’s Gross National Income.

The more than 140 countries benefitting from the UAE’s foreign aid disbursements in 2013 included developing nations in Africa, and countries in the Middle East and North Africa region that have been strongly affected by turmoil in the past few years, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon.

The UAE is home to the International Humanitarian City (IHC), a Dubai-based logistics centre for the distribution of humanitarian aid which hosts more than 50 non-governmental organizations and commercial entities, among them the Global Logistics Service of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who are all involved in the delivery of aid during crises and for long-term development purposes.

[ifrc.org]

USAid suspends contractor ‘International Relief and Development’

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The United States Agency for International Development announced Monday that it had suspended one of its largest contractors, International Relief and Development, a nonprofit group based in Virginia, because of questions over oversight of its spending, a significant amount being in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The agency would not say specifically what it had found, but deemed the findings serious enough to suspend the group from receiving new contracts.

“U.S.A.I.D. has a zero-tolerance policy for mismanagement of American taxpayer funds and will take every measure at our disposal to recover these funds,” said Benjamin Edwards, a spokesman for the agency.

The suspension came after years of criticism that the agency had provided little oversight of its contractors. The group also came under fire last year after a Washington Post investigation raised questions about the millions of dollars in bonuses it had awarded to members of the family that founded the group.

International Relief and Development is one of the largest recipients of grants and contracts among nonprofit groups that work for the agency. It gets most of its funding from the aid agency, having received $2.4 billion from it since 2006. Among its other services, the group builds roads and clinics and works with farmers to increase food production in developing countries. It works in more than 40 countries.

 [New York Times]

Nordic humanitarian initiative in eastern Ukraine

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The Nordic foreign ministers decided to provide early assistance to Ukraine in the field of humanitarian reconstruction and energy efficiency. The aid is to be made available for the affected and vulnerable regions of eastern and southern Ukraine, including the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

“It is vital to assist the local population and internally displaced people, and thus to start a normalization process in these parts of Ukraine”, the foreign ministers of the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland said.

In the first instance, the Nordic initiative will address key social infrastructure such as schools, kindergartens and health centers, and possibly also damaged housing in certain cases. Funding of EUR 2 million will be available for this purpose in 2014, with further allocations in 2015.

This Nordic initiative will cover only a small part of Ukraine’s reconstruction and energy efficiency needs. The intention is to start a process that may expand during implementation and that could be linked to Ukraine’s national programmes and other international assistance.

USAID announces more assistance grants in West African fight against Ebola

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U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah announced nearly $142 million in humanitarian projects and grants to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The announcement brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance for the Ebola crisis to more than $258 million.

“Stopping Ebola in West Africa will require a significant international effort, and the United States urges our global partners to provide additional assistance to help bring the outbreak under control,” said Shah. “We are helping affected countries gain positive and strong momentum by the day, but much more must be done to win this fight.”

The new projects and grants will support:

  • Construction and support of additional Ebola treatment units in partnership with the affected countries and international organizations;
  • Training and support for health care workers and safe burial teams;
  • The Government of Liberia’s strategy to establish and staff community care centers, which, in tandem with Ebola treatment units, will provide another level of Ebola isolation and care to communities while helping to break the chain of transmission; and
  • Critical logistics support for international partners working in West Africa.

[USAID]

A big step forward for Chinese philanthropy

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The billionaire co-founder of Alibaba.com has set up charitable trusts ahead of the company’s highly anticipated IPO, a move that could mark the start of a new era of Chinese philanthropy.

Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, along with current CEO Joe Tsai, said Friday that they have established two trusts funded by share options worth about 2% of the company. The philanthropic effort will initially benefit environmental, medical, education and cultural causes in China, according to a statement.

Ma said he established the trusts because “concern and complaints cannot change the current situation. … We must assume responsibility and take action to improve the environment that our children will inherit,” he said.

The establishment of the trusts makes Ma one of China’s first billionaires to set up a major philanthropic endeavor, and puts him in the ranks other successful executives who have pledged large portions of the fortunes to charity. Three of those — Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — praised Ma’s decision.

[CNN] 

On World AIDS Day December 1

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Since it was founded in 2002, the Global Fund has been a leader in the world’s successful response to HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. All told, its efforts have saved nearly 9 million lives. The Global Fund also plays a key role in helping developing countries change the course of these three epidemics.

For example, when people have early access to HIV testing and treatment, they not only save their own lives but they dramatically reduce their chances of infecting others. Moreover, a simple preventive procedure like voluntary medical male circumcision lowers a man’s chance of acquiring HIV — and potentially transmitting it to his partner — by about 60%. Overall, effective prevention and treatment programs have helped reduce new HIV infections by a third since 2001.

That last number is crucial, because preventing new HIV infections is absolutely essential to ending AIDS. Developing a vaccine to prevent HIV remains critical, and scientific researchers are achieving exciting breakthroughs. In the meantime, we need to develop new technologies that women can use to protect themselves. Condoms are a great way to prevent the spread of HIV, but they require the cooperation of both partners.

The Global Fund doesn’t just provide money for pills and other health products. It channels its resources into training new generations of doctors, nurses, and health care workers. It helps developing countries build stronger health systems. This approach guarantees that the money donors invest in the Global Fund has a long-term impact on overall health and quality of life in dozens of countries.

Put simply: The Global Fund isn’t just one of the kindest things people have ever done for each other — it’s also one of the smartest investments the world has ever made.

[Read Bill Gates full opinion piece] 

Giving Aid to Poor Countries

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When polled, the American public agreed with the assertion that “taking care of problems at home is more important than giving aid to foreign countries.”

But this does mean that Americans think that no aid should go overseas?

When respondents were asked what percentage of their tax dollars that go to help poor people at home and abroad … should go to help poor people in other countries, the response was 16%. (Down from a 22% response in a 1996 poll.)

Strikingly, this turns out to be a far higher percentage than is currently given.

The year this poll was taken, only about four per cent (4%) of the total spent went toward causes that in any way benefited the poor abroad. (Nowhere near the above 16 – 22%.)

Budget perceptions: Program on International Policy Attitudes “Americans on Foreign Aid and World Hunger: A Study of U.S. Public Attitudes,”.

Africa still needs aid

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Views by Bob Geldof, musician, member of the Africa Progress Panel chaired by Kofi Annan, and a businessman and campaigner against poverty: 

With the U.K. becoming the first G-8 country to spend 0.7 percent of its gross national income on overseas aid, the government’s recent budget was an exciting moment for the international development community.

But with extreme poverty falling all around Africa, and the continent’s mineral resources providing more revenue now than international aid, some observers are asking whether international aid is out of date.

Africa needs trade, not aid, they say. In truth, however, they still need both.

Africa has the world’s fastest growing population, expanding by more than 20 million every year, and must create jobs fast to keep its unemployment rate from rising. Some analysts highlight the Middle East, where failure to generate enough jobs for young, urbanized populations had catastrophic consequences for political and economic stability.

Trade – in its broadest sense – will create the jobs that Africa so badly needs. So Africa’s leaders must identify and nurture labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and hospitality in order to create more jobs. This belief in trade is entirely consistent with a profound respect for aid. I have learned that one begets the other.

The 2005 Gleneagles G-8 summit, for example, brought debt cancellation and increasing levels of aid that helped to school tens of millions of children and triggered an intellectual stampede that is propelling at least some of Africa’s rapid economic growth. Today, Africa has some of the world’s fastest growing economies and foreign investors are tripping over themselves for a slice of African profit.

Almost two dozen of Africa’s 54 nations have now reached middle income status, and more undoubtedly will do so by 2025. As noted by the World Bank’s lead economist in its Nairobi office, if sub-Saharan Africa were a single country, the World Bank would already classify it as middle-income, with an average income of more than $1,500.

But Africa, like every other continent, needs its aid. Away from the investment analyses and high growth headlines, some 40 percent of Africa’s one billion population still live on $1.25 per day or less.

Trade, jobs, and opportunities remain critically important for Africa.