Thursday May 8th, 2008. 9:08 am by frog
The news this morning is reporting that deaths in Burma could be as high as 100,000 people. Figures like that are incomprehensible. Some how it is easier to internalise the tragedy with images like this one of a Burmese child cleaning up twigs after Cyclone Nargis:
From here in New Zealand there is not much we can do in the short term except support the international aid effort.
While slightly tangential it’s also probably a timely point to consider again our collective failure as a country to meet our 2002 commitment to give 0.7% of our national income as international aid. As you can see from this chart, New Zealand is one of several countries letting down the international communities efforts to end poverty. Looking at the chart, it seems part of our problem is that we are English speaking – 4 of the six remaining countries without a schedule to lift their aid contribution are English speaking, and we are one of them. Currently New Zealand pays 0.27% of its income as aid and only has a goal to increase that to 0.35% by 2010 – that’s half of the commitment we made in 2002.
Overseas poverty won’t be an election issue this year but hopefully that doesn’t mean we will ignore it.
Photo Credit: Azmil77 at Flickr
Posted in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Society & Culture | by frog | Thu, May 8th, 2008 |
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May 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am
What does the green party propose, policy-wise, to reduce poverty. How do we use that money, because handouts only temporarily fix the problem. The recent disaster looked like a disaster waiting to happen: massive overpopulation in a river delta. There’s no easy way to fix cultural trends. Of course better infrastructure, education, building materials would go some way towards making people living in vulnerable areas safer, but Myanmar is usually closed to foreign intervention on these matters. So its all very well to criticize, but does the green party have any suggestions that would actually change things in any meaningful way. Also, are those figures just governmental aid, or overall aid including private donations? Also, how do we compare to countries with similar per capita GDP - that would be a better comparative statistic.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Increasing the developed world’s aid to 0.7 % of GDP alone won’t help the Third World. Correcting deficiencies in the world’s economic and trade structures is far more likely to help, but thats not palatable to either the “Left” or “Right”.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Agencies collecting for Burma:
UNICEF
0800 243 575
http://www.unicef.org.nz
ADRA New Zealand
09 262 5620
http://www.adra.org.nz
The Salvation Army New Zealand
0800 53 0000
http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz
Christian World Service
0800 74 73 72
http://www.cws.org.nz
Oxfam New Zealand
0800 400 666 or 0900 600 20 (automatic $29 donation)
http://www.oxfam.org.nz
Rotary New Zealand World Community Service
Westpac Account No. 03 1702 0192208 02
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
0800 22 10 22
http://www.caritas.org.nz
TEARFund
http://www.tearfund.org.nz
Save the Children New Zealand
0800 167 168
http://www.savethechildren.org.nz
World Vision New Zealand
0800 800 776
http://www.worldvision.org.nz
May 8th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Ahuahu, the government not even telling people that a cyclone was coming probably didn’t help much either!
Sleepy, I would just say ‘agricultural subsidies’.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:30 am
StephenR
Your solution does seem rather simple yet effective, but there are pitfalls to just dropping agricultural subsides.
Well theres potential for such dramatic changes to have some peverse outcomes.
For example if the US and Europe dropped agriculture supports for their “farmers”, production in those areas could drop substantially and as you say farmers will sell to those who can pay the highest prices so farmers in the Third World could well shift their focus from supplying locally to shipping food to the West where we can afford to pay higher prices and thus limiting the availability of food on the local market.
There is a high likelihood of this happening in place like Brazil where 2.8% of landowners hold 56% of the land. If the liberalization of the agricultural sector were to be pursued without also liberalisation on tariffs on the value added sector and concurrent policies that provide for a more equitable distribution of land ownership, then it will be in vain, if not actualy detrimental to the interests of the poor in the Third World.
Not to mention the population of the Third World will be forever trapped into depending on the low value agricultural sector that is prone to wild price fluctuations and vulnerable to the vagaries of nature, not to mention the fact that the global distribution chain is dominated by a small number of transnational corporations whose sole focus is on the “bottom line”.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Well yes, I should have said not to cut subsidies in the Roger Douglas mold i.e. totally and suddenly. Gradually would do.
I fail to see how reducing subsidies and tariff barriers would trap developing countries into staying in the agricultural sector, since they already are i.e. for some countries there are no tariffs on wood exports, but tariffs on furniture exports. Result: consumers buy furniture for more, producers trapped into producing cheap stuff.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
”
Ahuahu, the government not even telling people that a cyclone was coming probably didn’t help much either!
Sleepy, I would just say ‘agricultural subsidies’.”
Right, and thats nothing to do with foreign aid. Myanmar won’t take outside advice, so what do you suggest? UN sanctioned invasion?
May 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
StephenR
“I fail to see how reducing subsidies and tariff barriers would trap developing countries into staying in the agricultural sector….since they already are i.e. for some countries there are no tariffs on wood exports, but tariffs on furniture exports. Result: consumers buy furniture for more, producers trapped into producing cheap stuff.”
You said it yourself, rather succinctly. “…. for some countries there are no tariffs on wood exports, but tariffs on furniture exports. Result: consumers buy furniture for more, producers trapped into producing cheap stuff.”
If developed countries maintain their tariff barriers on value added commodites, developed world value added producers will be artificially competitive to imports from the Third World, which will stifle investment in expensive infrastructure required to produce value added products in the Third World, thus trapping them independance on low value commodities to trade. Thus they won’t be able to advance to current developed world standards let alone leapfrog into the efficient, low carbon economy of the future, which will be needed to satisfy the needs of a growing world population within the limited capacity of the planet.
Maybe the “Watermelons” among us need to consider that before advocating protectionist measures that favours local enterprise (and labour) over legitimate free trade.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Er, so, we agree then ST? Not sure that anyone is advocating tariffs simply for ‘protection’ though - perhaps slave labour, conservation concerns and carbon concerns…
I wouldn’t personally advocate war as a means purely to help people. I would certainly like to know what countries are say, selling Myanmar weapons or letting their leaders open bank accounts, or letting the generals travel freely.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Sleepy, you have to admit though that if the United States and Europe got rid of their agricultural subsidies and other trade barriers that it would help massively reduce poverty in the Third World. It is ridiculuous that the European Union is the world’s second largest producer of sugar, considering the climate. Another thing is that many of these subsidies are on non-food commodities; cotton especially. The only heavy food based one is on corn in the United States.
The other thing is that agriculture does not trap an economy. Prior to 2000, Zimbabwe was one of the most prosperous economies in Africa, and it had a mainly agricultural base. New Zealand has a mainly agricultural base, and we aren’t Third World. It all comes down to competitive advantage; if a nation has the right soil for it, then they should grow that crop (I’ll include animals in the word crop).
About Burma, the tragedy is not the cyclone, the tragedy is a military dictatorship that needs to be dealt with. Unfortunately, like with North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe, the People’s Republic of China is a substantial barrier to dealing with that problem. At least the dictators that the United States backed were not complete and utter incompetents.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ahuahu, “Also, how do we compare to countries with similar per capita GDP - that would be a better comparative statistic.”
The relative levels, and much more are here: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/55/40381862.pdf
and
You can see very interesting reports on the quality of aid each country gives, as well as info on their levels of tariffs etc.. here: http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi/_country/new_zeal and
May 8th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Incidentally, NZ has “High barriers against apparel (13.4% of the value of imports)”. So we’re paying 13.4% more than we need to on (some) imported clothes! Rah!
May 8th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
“Sleepy, you have to admit though that if the United States and Europe got rid of their agricultural subsidies and other trade barriers that it would help massively reduce poverty in the Third World. It is ridiculuous that the European Union is the world’s second largest producer of sugar, considering the climate.”
Well first of all, in the Third World, farmers aren’t necessarily those that work the land, but effectively are feudal landlords who work in concert with government to ensure that the landless have no alternative, but to labor on their estates for rates that they decide. So just because trade of agricultural commodities will grow doesn’t mean that the common folk will be much better off.
Where it has worked before, as in the Asian Tiger nations and even China, was when the government worked to ensure a more equitable distribution of land ownership amongst the population, but in Latin America especially a colonial mindset still is firmly entrenched in halls of power.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Removing trade barriers isn’t going to help Burmese as the majority of the country’s exports are designated as military monopolies (teak, gems, rice etc. textiles are an exception, though most major Burmese companies are linked with the military in some way). So trade is merely going to put more money in the hands of the junta.
China and Russia are the main arms suppliers in recent years. Asean countries provide diplomatic support.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
just to be clear i was talking about subsidies in relation to ST’s ‘world’ problem.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Sam Buchanan Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
> Removing trade barriers isn’t going to help Burmese as the majority of the country’s exports are designated as military monopolies (teak, gems, rice etc. textiles are an exception, though most major Burmese companies are linked with the military in some way). So trade is merely going to put more money in the hands of the junta.
Yep. Burma’s probably the only country I would support across-the-board trade sanctions against. For precisely that reason.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“Well first of all, in the Third World, farmers aren’t necessarily those that work the land, but effectively are feudal landlords who work in concert with government to ensure that the landless have no alternative, but to labor on their estates for rates that they decide. So just because trade of agricultural commodities will grow doesn’t mean that the common folk will be much better off.”
It depends on which region you look at. South America, I would agree, India, I would agree, but in large parts of Africa, I would disagree - much of the farming there is still collectively done, or people own small holdings and farm off them.
Another thing is that if trade of agricultural economies increases, then there will be demand for more labour - that would push the price of labour up, and benefit the people. The state would get more tax revenue, which would naturally allow them to invest in the country. Don’t believe me? Look at Zimbabwe pre-2000 - a prosperous nation where land was in the hands of not that many people; they had some of the best living standards in Africa.
“Where it has worked before, as in the Asian Tiger nations and even China, was when the government worked to ensure a more equitable distribution of land ownership amongst the population, but in Latin America especially a colonial mindset still is firmly entrenched in halls of power.”
The Asian Tiger nations and the PRC mostly grew on the basis of highly efficient (in the case of the Tigers) and cheap (in the case of the PRC) manufacturing. Of course, an efficient taxation structure also helped them out.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
It is entirely consistent to promote free trade (just not making it conditional on the Third World handing over ownership of their services/utililities to to get it) and an increase in GDP foreign aid to .7%.
However it is unlikely this government will ever do so. Deferring the goal of increasing it to .35% till National was in power was a dead give away.
And the fact that they have refused to increase the incomes of students or beneficiaries (with or without children) despite the fact that their real costs have gone up by more than the CPI. If one was to assess what their allowances and incomes would buy in 1999 and today (and even worse as fuel, power, food and rent costs will continue to rise) one could note as large a cut in real standard of living as occured in 1991.
Despite this, Cullen says he has taken Treasury advice and is not having a no income tax threshold and is focusing tax change (raising the thresholds) on helping those in full-time work. Apparently only the working poor are to receive any assistance, the non working poor or those in casual labour (less than full-time) can expect nothing. Unless they are on Super apparently those on this fixed income are the deserving poor (a large middle class voting block).
It should provide Greens with the student and beneficiary vote.
The question is whether Greens can work with National, so we can have the first MMP government supportive of beneficiaries and students since 2002.