The duty of aid

Pamela Bone reminds readers of today's Melbourne Age of some harsh global realities - and of the importance of aid from more affluent countries in trying to alleviate them:

Famines create headlines, but chronic malnutrition is a wider problem. About 800 million people in the world regularly do not have enough to eat. According to a recent United Nations report, nearly one third of the men, women and children of sub-Saharan Africa are severely undernourished. Many millions of children have no access to clean water, to the most basic health care, to education. In some countries, nearly half the children under five are underfed to the point of stunting...
.....
Most people understand that in a world of plenty it is morally wrong that so many should suffer miserable hunger. That is why 1.6 million Australians give regularly to non-government organisations working in poor countries and many more give to urgent appeals for famine relief. But many, while they might acknowledge it is wrong, manage not to think about it too much. Bob Geldof has rightly described Australia's aid contribution - under the Howard Government the lowest on record - as pathetic. Yet overseas aid is never an election issue. The media do not make it one and few voters demand answers of governments or oppositions about whether they propose to increase it.
.....
[T]hat aid does work, has worked, is well-documented, by the World Bank, the UN and many other international bodies...

... In the Third World overall, the number of people starving - defined by the UN as having insufficient food to perform light physical activity - has fallen from 35 per cent in 1970 to 18 per cent today.

It is true that trade has played a large role in these countries' development, but so has aid. Anyone who has visited a poor country being helped by the West - as I have in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malawi, Rwanda, Chad - can see the benefits of well-directed aid projects, of the building of schools and health centres, the provision of clean water sources, the education of girls (proven one of the most effective means of lifting countries out of poverty), the enlisting of local experts in teaching sustainable agriculture.

(Hat tip: Jim Nolan.)