Christian Aid Week
In the UK, this week is Christian Aid Week. The annual event, which started in 1957, is the oldest door-to-door collection campaign in the UK. Last year collectors raised £14.7 million which was used to support the charities work in more than 5 of the poorest countries in the world.
Its worth pointing out, to clear away any misconception, that Christian Aid in no way involves itself with missionary work of any kind. It is strictly an overseas development agency. Moreover, its one of the best around. Its campaigning and advocacy work is highly professional and well targeted. Its also produced a wealth of written material that represents an invaluable resource to campaigners, writers and activists everywhere.
This week Christian Aid released a new report, “Aid, death and dogma”, bringing home details of another glorious triumph for the hallowed “free market”.
“Unfettered free trade policies backed by the British government have led to a crisis in Indian agriculture, spiralling rural debt and an epidemic of suicide among poor farmers.
Shocking new research reveals that more than 4,000 farmers have killed themselves in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh since the ‘reforms’ of a hard-line liberalising regime, in part bankrolled by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID).
This support also involved funding the free market fundamentalist Adam Smith Institute to run a privatising scheme that cost some 45,000 Indian public sector workers their jobs.”
In Ghana the report shows how democratic institutions have been subverted by the demands of doctrinaire free market policies, where the International Monetary Fund (IMF), backed by the World Bank, effectively overturned a law to protect poor farmers.
In Jamaica it illustrates how increasing numbers of women have been driven to prostitution and drug smuggling by a continuing round of liberalisation that has wrecked their employment opportunities.
The Christian Aid report also scrutinises the last Labour government’s recent ‘U’ turn on development policy and liberalisation. Earlier this year, both DFID and the Africa Commission, set up by Tony Blair, said that countries should no longer be forced to liberalise and privatise in order to receive aid.
Its worth pointing out, to clear away any misconception, that Christian Aid in no way involves itself with missionary work of any kind. It is strictly an overseas development agency. Moreover, its one of the best around. Its campaigning and advocacy work is highly professional and well targeted. Its also produced a wealth of written material that represents an invaluable resource to campaigners, writers and activists everywhere.
This week Christian Aid released a new report, “Aid, death and dogma”, bringing home details of another glorious triumph for the hallowed “free market”.
“Unfettered free trade policies backed by the British government have led to a crisis in Indian agriculture, spiralling rural debt and an epidemic of suicide among poor farmers.
Shocking new research reveals that more than 4,000 farmers have killed themselves in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh since the ‘reforms’ of a hard-line liberalising regime, in part bankrolled by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID).
This support also involved funding the free market fundamentalist Adam Smith Institute to run a privatising scheme that cost some 45,000 Indian public sector workers their jobs.”
In Ghana the report shows how democratic institutions have been subverted by the demands of doctrinaire free market policies, where the International Monetary Fund (IMF), backed by the World Bank, effectively overturned a law to protect poor farmers.
In Jamaica it illustrates how increasing numbers of women have been driven to prostitution and drug smuggling by a continuing round of liberalisation that has wrecked their employment opportunities.
The Christian Aid report also scrutinises the last Labour government’s recent ‘U’ turn on development policy and liberalisation. Earlier this year, both DFID and the Africa Commission, set up by Tony Blair, said that countries should no longer be forced to liberalise and privatise in order to receive aid.
But the report makes clear that the UK’s development policy, along with that of the World Bank and the IMF, is still strongly based on liberalising principles. Legislation is urgently required to turn Mr Blair’s rhetoric into reality, it says.”
I posted a few weeks ago on the gap between New Labour rhetoric on third world poverty and the rather less wholesome reality of the policies it pursues. Left to their own devices western governments will treat third world aid budgets strictly as means to pursue their own economic and strategic interests. Any genuine effort to Make Poverty History this year will require NGOs to drag those governments to the negotiating table and wring some firm and meaningful commitments out of them. Christian Aid are more than up to the task, and they’re worthy of your full support.
posted by David Wearing at 6:27 PM
2 Comments:
This was good and to the point - as usual - but you also missed out the point that our markets are closed in many ways to the overseas producers. If we are interested in real free trade, which I am, we need to stop giving subsidies with Europe - and the US - for crops, raw materials and finished goods. Only then will the people of the 3rd world be able to make money out of the trade.
But even then I agree that there needs to be checks and balances to help these countries fit into the system. I remeber hearing a radio article from Mozambique when the IMF told that country to open up its borders to free Trade and S Africa flooded the food market with cheap chickens. this killed off local production and damaged their economy; just to satisfy the 'crats of the IMF who didn't have to live with the consequences.
Finally we need to make the G8 aware - I don't think any of them, even Blair or Brown really care about the 3rd world. You just need to look at the disparity between EU internal aid (EURP) and the EU's development budget (ACP); the ACP is only 7% of the EURP. In fact Portugal will get more aid in Europe than the whole ACP budget. G8 is just a chance for the leaders to look good and to really show their contempt for most of us.
Sorry about the length but I feel really strongly about something that the leaders just talk about and never do much on.
p.s. maybe our leaders are also scared of us; look at the security operation to keep us away from them and the fact that Bush is bringing over a Marine Helicopter Assault ship just in case the Brits get out of hand and need pacifying - and maybe after Live8 that'll happen.
don't worry about the length, Matt. The contribution's appreciated.
I did cover a bit of this a while ago here http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk/2005/04/blair-pledges-to-heal-africaagain.html
but yours is a useful addition.
When discussing the free market its worth noting the distinction between what the west allows for itself and what it demands of others. The real doctrine, as opposed to the rhetoric, is that handouts and other aspects of the nanny state are just fine for the strongest players in the market, but the iron discipline of neo-liberalism must be strictly applied to their weaker competitors. The examples you mention are not anomalies but perfect examples of the sacred global marketplace in action, where the all-too-visible hand of the powerful rigs the rules and reaps the rewards.
The strictures of this psuedo-liberalism are 'for thee but not for me'. This essay is the best exposition I've read so far on the true nature of the "free market" - http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199606--.htm
This from Howard Zinn also lays bare the hypocrisies at work http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/BigGovernWhom_Zinn.html
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