Overseas aid debate reminds island it should do better

THE work of the Overseas Aid Commission rarely has the spotlight shone on it. Announcements of the projects being supported come and go, often most prominently when there is an emergency, but it attracts little scrutiny.

Once a term it gets aired in the States where we are reminded that we actually committed to hitting the United Nations target of contributing 0.7% of gross national income to overseas aid – we are at about 0.13% according to the latest available figure from 2008 and the freeze in spending in this area does little to show Guernsey making progress to the outside world.

But there is an increased focus on spending in all areas at the moment, understandably, while the island's finances are going through the mill.

So would the benefits of hitting the UN target outweigh the internal costs?

It is a balance Carol Steere and her commissioners as well as the Policy Council are tasked with weighing up.

'All of the commissioners would like to see more funding directed at the overseas aid budget, we do think it's regretful that we're still at 0.13% of our GNI,' said Deputy Steere.

Before the G8 summit in June, The Accountability Report produced by this year's hosts, Canada, showed that in 2009, the UK devoted 0.52% of its GDP to aid – £7.75bn. – with the total projected to rise to 0.6% this year.

France spent 0.46% of national income on aid, Germany 0.35%, the US 0.2% and Italy 0.16%.

Jersey's overseas aid budget in 2010 is just over £8m., Guernsey's stands at £2.54m.

'We do fall behind a lot of developed jurisdictions. We like to promote ourselves on the international stage in terms of finance, in comparison to other jurisdictions we are a very wealthy community.'

Other States members also highlighted Guernsey's role internationally during last week's debate – certainly it would be one fewer stone for critics to throw if the island was more in line with the jurisdictions it likes to compete with.

Deputy Sean McManus is a committed internationalist.

'The key issue is that Guernsey is part of the international community – we present ourselves as being such – I think that has responsibilities as well as privileges,' he said.

'In so far as we accept the internationalism of the world, be part of that whole notion, there's this concept of interdependence, as we live off the benefits of the world, we pay back into the scheme and if countries that are a lot poorer than Guernsey can adhere to the UN standard, it would seem that we should be able to.'

Neither Deputies McManus nor Steere would be comfortable with jumping to 0.7% in one go, but both hint that there should be a debate and a staged approached agreed that had the necessary flexibility in it.

It would mean an aspiration becoming more than a paper target.

'If the coalition in the UK was able to safeguard two areas, it identified health and international aid. A fiscally conservative coalition chose to do that, it's surprising an administration like ours can't,' said Deputy McManus.

In 2009, the Overseas Aid Commission supported 80 individual grants totalling £2,365,225.

Deputy Steere said the commission accepted its budget freeze this year.

'The messages were all about we had to be careful how we spend our money and other States departments were not getting an increase,'

said Deputy Steere.

'We have approached the Policy Council, and the Policy Council approached Treasury asking for an increase in our budget this year, we want the restoration of the RPI after not getting the increase last year.

'We want to maintain the current value of the funds we have available. Once the economic situation starts to pick up in the island, we gain revenues, getting back to the days of surpluses, which I hope is in the not to distant future, once we start to see these shoots appearing we will be asking the Policy Council to consider increasing our budget considerably.'

Last week's debate heard speeches in favour of a budget increase, but also ones that argued charitable donations from individuals and businesses should not be forgotten when assessing the island's position.

'As chairman of the commission I get very few calls, I can count them on one hand, or concerns raised with me about having an overseas aid budget, so I think the general community support overseas aid, the reason for it, and support those parts of the world that don't have the benefits that we do and support those communities as they develop,' said Deputy Steere.

'However, we have to consider the needs of our own people as well, so it's a fine balance, but personally I think we have a long way to go.'

The commission received many more than twice as many applications for projects than it had funding for in 2008.

It can lead to some heart-rending decisions.

But the figures are impressive. For example, during 2009, £361,000 was given for agriculture projects, benefiting more than 32,000 people.

Investment in water/sanitation amounted to £865,000 in 26 projects that directly benefited 400,000 people.

'I'm quite humbled when I look at these projects, the amount of people that relatively small amounts of money will benefit, the types of aid we're supporting, clean water, latrines, really basic requirements and needs that we take for granted, and a small amount of money from us can make such a huge difference to their lives, it makes you start to think about your own life.'

Emergency aid is probably the commission's most high profile role.

Members of the Policy Council will press for donations when high profile events like those in Haiti hit.

There is perhaps a slight irony in that relatively few education projects are supported by a commission headed by the Education minister. Like in Guernsey, health gets the lion's share.

Deputy Steere took heart from Deputy Martin Storey raising that point in debate, as well as questioning why more projects that benefited woman were not supported.

Messages she is happy to take back to her fellow commissioners, who are all voluntary.

There was another key point raised in debate.

People would like to know more about the projects once they are completed – at the moment their success or otherwise is known pretty much only to the group locally.

It would perhaps bring more understanding and a better profile to its work.

But it does now have a visible presence at Frossard House at least where small gifts given by those that have been helped are now on display rather than being shut away in dusty cardboard boxes.