I know how much you all love political ranting on FB (especially from a leftie ranter) but stick with me. Had dinner with one of my sisters friends in Rome. A pretty amazing women who had recently been appointed country manager for the World Food Programme in South Sudan. Hearing her talk about working to feed millions of desperate people in one of the most dangerous countries on earth was incredible. She talked a lot about the Australian governments cuts to foreign aid and the impact to that country. She said Australia was the second largest provider of foreign aid after the U.S., and a major part of the work was to provide flood mitigation to open up farm land, and help to make the country more self reliant. It was one of the largest work programs underway in the country, which experiences devastating floods for about six months a year, potentially a massive employment opportunity as it would help to get people into agriculture and allow them to farm without the threat of crop devastation each year. The foreign aid cuts mean the work has simply stopped, the decision will have ramifications for years to come and curb development in one of the worlds poorest countries. To all those who will inevitably spout the government line about budget emergency and debt and deficit disaster, reflect on this. While the government was hacking billions from the foreign aid budget in Decembers mid year economic and fiscal outlook statement in December, it also quietly shelved plans to change tax laws to target multinational profit shifters, an initiative that could have raised billions. It would seem that as a wealthy country we have have obligations that go beyond politics, polling and ideology. Really interesting to understand the impacts of cutting what is essentially a soft political target, as most people would not understand or possibly care how foreign aid is spent. I appreciate that FB gives me a voice to tell this story.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 23:38:42 +0000
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