Aid money diverted to 'War on Terror'

28 September 2006

The fight against terrorism has caused increasing poverty for the poorest people on the planet as billions of dollars that could be spent on aid are hijacked for the war on terror.

The events of 9/11 have changed the world in a myriad of ways even down to how the global community spends its aid dollars. As Council for International Development Executive Director Rae Julian explains, the fight against terrorism has caused increasing poverty for the poorest people on the planet as billions of dollars that could be spent on aid are hijacked for the war on terror.

Over the past three decades conflict has resulted in deepening social and economic injustice for millions of people. It' a 'silent tsunami' that has become even more devastating in the five years since September 11^th 2001.

Increasingly, rich western nations are looking at their international aid obligations through the lens of security issues and terrorism. Today, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, military spending has passed the US$1-trillion mark and even money ear-marked for aid has been spent in areas of strategic military interest such as Afghanistan and its near neighbours. The result is that nearly half a billion of the world's poorest people are worse off now than they were in 1990 despite the international goal to halve extreme poverty by 2015.

Even in our region the effects are being felt. The Australian peace operation in the Solomon Islands, for example, comes mainly from its aid budget. One billion dollars is to be spent by Australia on a new police force for Papua New Guinea, despite resistance from the Port Moresby government who felt it was an unwarranted interference in the affairs of their country. PNG acquiesced when the deal became clear - accept this programme or put at risk further aid from Australia.

A new international report, Reality of Aid 2006, which was launched by the Council for International Development last week, says that quite abruptly the much vaunted Millennium Summit emphasis on poverty eradication guided by international human rights and humanitarian law has been sidelined.

Increased aid, urgently needed for fundamental human rights as well as other basic needs, has been siphoned off for almost limitless amounts of human, financial and military resources to prevent further terrorist attacks. The war on terror has been used to justify practices that run contrary to international human rights commitments.

While guns and soldiers are excluded in how the world counts its overseas aid the criteria still remains broad. Demobilizing soldiers, counter-narcotics policing and the training of police forces all meet the conditions to qualify as aid.

Globally nearly a third of what is counted as new aid, the eighteen and a half billion dollars that the world has agreed to spend, has gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan - areas crucial to the US war on terror. In a sudden move Britain has allocated 200 million pounds in aid  to Iraq - money that almost certainly would have gone to low-income countries such as in sub-Saharan Africa where up to half of children die before they reach their fifth birthday.

Even Latin America is now coming under the anti-terrorism microscope.

Most explicitly 80 percent of the $4-billion Plan Colombia is devoted to strengthening Colombian security forces. This aid has been triggered in part by America's concerns over the populist left wing policies of Colombia'™s neighbour Venezuela. Contrast this with the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has affected the lives of millions. Donors there, however, spent less than $900-million in 2003 and the UN struggled to meet the $393-million bill for peacekeeping in 2001/02.

According to the 2005 Human Development Report the increase in military spending by the world since 2000 would have been enough for all nations to meet the internationally-agreed goal of spending 0.7 per cent of their national income on aid. That 0.7 percent was the internationally-accepted figure the world agreed on in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals. These goals agreed to in 2000 aimed to halve extreme poverty by 2015 thereby reducing the estimated 1.2 billion people living on less than US$1 per day. Sadly, because of the war on terror, that goal now appears further away than ever.

Ironically, while New Zealand spends only a miserly 0.27 percent of its national income on aid, its aid is linked firmly to alleviating poverty and providing health and education to the world's poor.

We don't count quasi anti-terrorism programmes as aid. In fact, our government should take credit for its independent foreign policy, which has seen it aligned with UN peacekeeping missions rather than following the United States approach.

Once again, this is an opportunity for the New Zealand government to take an international lead by not only continuing to provide good quality aid but also keeping to its international promise. The government must set a timetable to provide 0.7 percent of our national income in aid by 2015.