The Burden on the Poorest Half of the World gets Heavier and Costlier.

Hi I am David. As you are aware, this journey is not for my benefit but to raise public awareness about global poverty (and money for the Kazembe Baby Orphanage in Zambia) , and particular, poverty stricken children in Africa.

While in Canberra, I am hoping to speak to the Secretary for International Development Assistance given the enormous pressure the developed world faces in maintaining their aid commitments under the current global economic crisis.

You may be aware that the UN Financing for Development Conference was held recently in Doha.

In 2002 the UN conducted the first Financing for Development Conference (attended by Heads of State, World Bank and the IMF) resulting in the Monterrey Consensus.

Monterrey Consensus is in essence the unanimous support for the UN target of allocating .7% of Gross National Income for Official Development Assistance by UN Member Countries by 2015. (The .7% is for the financing the Millennium Development Goals central to the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000).

Among the many goals encompassing the MDG's is the "eradication of extreme hunger and poverty by half by 2015" (UN Millennium Program).

Of note, the Rudd Labor Government has committed .5% of Gross National Income for International Development Assistance by 2015. If National Development Assistance is taken to mean Official Development Assistance – and if I’m wrong I stand to be corrected – then Australia falls short of the UN target and behind Sweden’s 1.03% of Gross National Income. Currently, Australia’s contribution is .32% of Gross National Income (The Australian, 2008) – a very poor showing given unprecedented economic growth in the last 11 years and the average Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development figure being .46%

In the absence of contrite commitment and a binding time frame (by the G20) to the Monterrey Consensus, the likelihood of achieving the Millennium Development Goals is looking bleak indeed for the poorest half of the world. Sadly, heads of state have been conspectuses by there absence at the Doha Funding for Development Conference.

With the enormous attention the national and global economy is receiving of late, Official Development Assistance may fall off the agenda, and worst still, scaled back. In the 1990-93 recessions, aid fell close to 25% and returned to 92 levels in 2003 (Oxfam).

In dollar terms, the level of attention the global economy is receiving is reflected in the $3 trillion mobilised by the EU and US to bail out the banking sector in Autumn of 2008. This is 30 times the 140bn dollars in aid developing countries received last year (Oxfam).

If not more alarming, the global economic crisis will see an additional 40 million people living on less then one dollar a day, and 100 million living on less the two dollars a day (Oxfam).

The global economic crisis has every thing to do with extreme capitalism adding to a heavier price the poorest half of the world are already paying.

With rises in food prices, more are added and the Millennium Development Goals move further away from the most vulnerable and the weak. “Grain-prices increases cost developing economies $324bn last year – more then three times then what they receive in aid (Oxfam).

In view of the fact that the market was to lighten the load for the poorest half of the world, need I say ‘the market has increased their load even more’

In closing, the market in it self is not the problem, the lack of regulation in a self seeking market and devoid of sole is.

If 30,000 children are dying every day in the poorest half of the world from preventable diseases and hunger then the problem in the current global economic crisis stands to get even worst.