• About
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S : THE EUROPEAN UNION SHOULD THANK ENGLAND FOR ITS IN OR OUT REFERENDUM.

bobdillon33blog

~ Free Thinker.

bobdillon33blog

Tag Archives: Mediterranean refugee crisis.

THE BEADY EYE OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE FORTHCOMING UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW: If you thinks they we have a problem with migration today … wait 20 years.

06 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Climate Change.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE OPEN LETTER TO THE DELEGATES OF THE FORTHCOMING UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE IN GLASGOW: If you thinks they we have a problem with migration today … wait 20 years.

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Capitalism vs. the Climate., Climate change, Climate Change Solution's., Climate refugees., Delegates Paris Climate change Summit Glasgow 2020, Earth, Environment, Extinction, Mediterranean refugee crisis., Migrants/Refugees., Reality of Climate Change, The cost of Climate Change., The Future of Mankind, THE UNITED NATIONS, What Needs to change in the World, World Climate Change refugees

 

Fifteen-minute read.

Dear Delegate,

Although climate change undoubtedly posed an “existential threat to our world” it is not too late to take decisive action.

So far we had the Cop-out 15 to Cop 25, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 the Paris Agreement in December 2015 and now the 2020 United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow.

As you know dealing with climate change will require coordinated action by nations around the world.

Up to this point what we have seen are countries and industries trying to gut, block or water down all efforts, in a rearguard manoeuvre that mirrors President Donald Trump’s rollback of climate policy in Washington.

24 million people were displaced by weather-related disasters this year.

As climate change begins to alter patterns of disasters, we can imagine these figures will get worse. Understand how changing weather patterns and disasters will alter patterns of migration. This will be both difficult and almost impossible to predict.

Reduction of carbon emissions has no chance of being reached through a voluntary cap and trade system utilizing the free market system. Why would countries strongly enforce caps and targets on their emissions if it puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the market place?

The fact is that if we are to save the planet from a devastating ecological meltdown, it is going to require an immediate and I mean immediate, reduction in greenhouse gases.

We must abandon the absurd notion that the invisible hand of the free market system will solve the crisis.

Why?

Because a market-driven voluntary system will not work.  

Because they are traded for huge profits. There is no baseline from which true carbon reductions can be measured, verification is lacking. 

Because it is cheaper to pollute and buy credits than it is to change production processes.

It is totally unrealistic to believe that carbon reductions on a large scale can be attained unless mandatory reductions are implemented and a full scale global. 

While rewarding carbon-reducing technologies makes sense we will only be able to take worthwhile actions if they are funded by a self-perpetuating fund with outright non-repayable subsidies. 

However, I don’t have to tell you that when it comes down to the wire as who and how we are going to fund the way forward to tackle fairly any actions the simple answer is that we do not have enough time to haggle about it. 

It can be achieved tomorrow by placing a 0.005% commission on all world activities that seek profit for profit sake. ( See previous posts)

The world stock markets are 99% run by high-frequency algorithms. Exploiting market conditions that can’t be detected by the human eye.

Of course, this begs an important question will such a commission affect the free market and can it be applied worldwide. 

Yes to both. 

It will not be climate change that creates another refugee crisis.

Rather, it will be the attempts to stop this migration that will be creating a crisis.

Climate change will not wait. Neither can we for climate refugees.

Regardless of how fast we cut emissions, we are going to see more and more people on the move and there is no single global agreement that can be signed and ratified to change this fact. 

Most of what you know about climate-linked migration is probably wrong.

We all know that climate change is the unpredictable ingredient in our rapidly changing world – and it’s potential to trigger both violent conflict and mass migration – needs to be considered as an urgent priority for policymakers.

As its effects spread, it will destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure. 

When added to existing social, economic and political tensions, it has the potential to ignite violence and conflict with disastrous consequences.

Poland is highly dependent on polluting coal for power (Pic: Beemwej)
You cannot strike a bargain with Climate. 

The choice faced by politicians and all of us is not about how to prevent climate-linked migration.

That possibility is gone, several decades ago.

There is now a stark choice between two very different options:

One: Trying to stop people from moving—which will lead to something that looks like a crisis—or helping people migrate out of the most badly hit areas.

Two: Is to facilitate climate-linked migration in a legal and organised way.

Support for migrants and refugees is at an all-time low. People are already using migration as a way of adapting climate change, with little or no help.

When migration isn’t illegal there is no need to do it secretly. No need for traffickers and smugglers. And no need for migrants to hide as soon as they arrive.

There is no simple law that could be passed that would “fix” climate-linked migration.

The problem is this won’t stop people moving so we need to start by defining exactly what a climate refugee is.

Droughts, hurricanes, floods and sea-level rise are all forcing people to move but picking out one group of people to call “climate refugees” is very difficult.

WHY?

Political responses to climate-linked migration are complicated, and it’s a field where the answers are often not simple.

Because if climate change plays a role in displacement it becomes difficult to draw the line.

What do we know about the links between climate change and conflict?

Climate-linked migration is very often from rural areas into cities.

So if the seas do rise to the predicted levels and people move within there own countries they will not be refugees climate or otherwise.  

To be a refugee you have to have crossed an international border which is part of the official definition of what makes someone a refugee. But, as the impacts of climate change worsen, more people will want to migrate across borders.

Therefore there is only one course of action and that is to open approved channels into the EU and other world nations in order to determine who is a genuine refugee and who is not. 

Few politicians will risk making bold statements about making provision for more people. Climate change is also a low priority for electorates in developed countries.

This is the climate crisis, not the coronavirus. tomorrow is too late. 

These changes cannot take place tomorrow. They should have been implemented yesterday!

Capitalism caused the problem now it should pay to resolve it.

Climate change is unequivocal, that we are responsible, and that our choices before us matter”.

We were never going to get there in one go unless we spread the cost in a way that is acceptable to one and all.  

Yours Faithfully 

The Beady Eye. 

Footnote: All supportive comments appreciated.

 

 

 

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

THE BEADY EYE: LOOKS AT THE TREATMENT OF REFUGEES.

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Humanity., Refugees., The Obvious., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., United Nations, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders, World Organisations.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE: LOOKS AT THE TREATMENT OF REFUGEES.

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Mediterranean refugee crisis., Migrants/Refugees., The Future of Mankind, THE UNITED NATIONS

( A shameful read of twenty minutes)

One of this century’s greatest tragedies.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "papers on refugees"

This is an issue that is long on rhetoric, as newspaper and TV news reports testify. The number of people forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict and war continues to increase at a staggering rate and will soon be overshadow by Global warming climate change migration.

This post attempts to look at where we have been, and where we are likely to go, in coping with this worlds endless stream of refugees. The refugee problems and crises are far from over and will continue to require urgent international cooperative treatment.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "papers on refugees"

Half of all current refugees have been displaced for over ten years.

At the moment most displaced people stay in their own country this will not be so with climate change.

We all know what causes refugee displacements and asylum flows, but the effects of conflict, political upheaval and economic incentives to migrate, are going to be dwarfed by climate migration.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 217A (III), on the 10 December 1948 will be out of date. 

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

This may well represents the first global international expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled but Artificial Intelligence, and technology combined with global warming is going to create a different kind of refugee or migrant.

The right to life is humanity’s most fundamental value.   Résultat de recherche d'images pour "papers on refugees"

More than 65 million people are today, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees, illegal immigrants, to put a label on them.

The distinction between an economic migrant and a refugee is simple:

Are you running from or to? all are escaping.

Half of the world’s refugees are children under 18 years of age. The average length of time a refugee spends in exile is about 20 years, which is more than an entire childhood, and represents a significant portion of a person’s productive working years.

So let’s try to comprehend ( not that it is possible to do so with written or spoken words)  what refugees have to face.

What is a camp?  What characterizes a camp and how camps affect the lives of those who are placed in them.

On a global scale, millions of refugees are contained in camps of one sort or another.

Life goes on in camps—albeit a life that is affected by the camp.

They are places where the depoliticization of life takes place, due to humanitarian government, paradoxically they also produces a hyper-politicized space where nothing is taken for granted and everything is contested.

They are places of social dissolution, of new beginnings where sociability is remolded in new ways.

They are places with little or no human rights, dignity strippers, with no education, they are terrorist recruitment centers.

Camps are defined along two dimensions: spatially and temporally.

Temporally, refugee camps are meant to be temporary, while in practice this temporariness are becoming permanent.

Temporary are legal anomalies, in which the administration of justice is virtually in the hands of the humanitarian agencies that exercise this function either directly, or by delegating it to community leaders.

In reality temporary camp are exceptional space put in place to deal with populations that disturb the national order of things, while spatially, camps always have boundaries the fact is that in despite of ubiquitous images of sprawling refugee camps the majority of refugees are no longer confined to camps they now live in cities or towns.

So try to imagine yourself in Zaatari a Jordanian Camp set on a lump of desert.A Syrian refugee woman walks in Zattari Syrian refugee camp, Mafraq city, Jordan

It has a current population of over 100,000 souls,( Equivalent to the population of Exeter Uk or  Reykjavík  Iceland.) of which 70% are woman and children.

People are reduced to ants in this dystopian, chronically parched science – fiction setting in Jordan.

A population that is utterly poverty-stricken and powerless, reduced to de facto prisoners with no hope no food no running water, imagine the toilets. Anger blooms, mothers sell their daughters, gangs roam, children go feral:

(Non of this can be blamed on Jordan who have contributed over £500 million against contributions from other countries of around £150 million. With 14,000 new arrivals a week a half a million will only keep the camp open for a few months.)

Or

Imagine you are on a disposable barque approaching Lampedusa with 500 passenger packed like sardines having paid traffickers $ 1000 to $1600. ( Newspapers headlines constantly refer to these people as illegal immigrants. They’er not, they’er refugees. ) You have survived crossing of the Sahara, the violence in Libya and all told your family have raised $6000 for you to make the journey in the likelihood that they will never see you again.

Anyway lets say you don’t drown, now add the screaming and crying ringing in your ears as you scramble the shore to be warped in a tinfoil, and bused to a reception camp, fingerprinted though you are not a criminal.

Your only option is to vanish to continue your journey in the hands of traffickers and gangs who exploit, enslave, rape and bully.

The EU Dublin convention stipulates that people political asylum must remain in the first safe country you land in. There is no picking and choosing.

According to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, European countries have the obligation to provide asylum to those who seek it. This is not the matter of politics and economy, but of basic human rights. There is no person that should live in fear for their life and the lives of their close ones.

Its only by not looking, by turning or backs that we can sail away and think that this is sad, but it is not our sadness.

Refugees are not spread evenly across the world.

Seven countries – Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Palestine and Jordan – host more than 50% of all refugees. Many countries, including some of the richest and most developed countries like the US, UK and Australia, are not fully living up to their responsibility under the Refugee Convention.

At the moment, there are over 9 million refugees seeking asylum.

If all refugees were distributed evenly across all the countries in the world, each country would host 100,000 refugees.

By mid-2015, the World Bank’s estimated cost of the Syrian war for the Middle Eastern countries is $35 billion.

Current funding models for displacement are no sustainable.

Whether greater international coordination could produce better outcomes for refugee-receiving countries and for the refugees themselves is of course governed by funds.

The United Nations’ annual appeal for international aid has risen 500% in 10 years due to the “new norm” of multiple humanitarian crises. Only 26% of the money needed has been committed, to enable the UN to provide assistance to 78.9 million people in 37 countries.

To quote António Guterres: The UN high commissioner for refugees. “Today’s needs are at unprecedented levels and without more support there simply is no way to respond to the humanitarian situations we’re seeing in region after region and in conflict after conflict.”

It has been widely suggested that more resources should be devoted to providing aid to refugees closer to home. “80% of our emergency response is to man-made crises which are now “apocalyptic” with displacement of people the highest since the second world war and multiple crises being the “new norm”.

On average, around 100 million people are affected by natural disasters per year and disasters now cost more than $100bn in economic damages. The number of displaced people has also increased, with 65 million people displaced at the close of 2015 compared with 33.3 million in 2013.

While donors give more generously every year, the gap between funds needed and funds provided continues to widen.

This raises questions about our ability to continue to meet affected people’s needs.

Then there is the question whether to devote resources directly to repatriation and reintegration programs, or simply to provide some form of economic incentive to return.

Neither will stem the flow of long-distance illegal migrants, once such flows have become established.

The best option by far is to find ways of preventing civil wars or to stop them recurring. Civil wars suggest that the causes are chiefly economic rather than political.

To really help displaced people, aid agencies must better understand how people are helping themselves, to figure out how to support these initiatives and advocate on behalf of refugees to overcome the barriers.

Education is to be seen as key to contributing to long-term solutions for refugees, ensuring that displaced generations are equipped to rebuild their lives and communities − either in the country of asylum or upon
their return home.

Résultat de recherche d'images pour "papers on refugees"

We need to fix the system – not for today, but to be ready for what the situation will be like five years from now never mind 20 or 30 years in the future.

It’s no wonder that we are living in disturbed times.

It is now time to unite and provide a new home for those who need it the most. What is needed, therefore, is a comprehensive, fully funded global program.

The world can’t keep pretending the refugee catastrophe is a European problem. The brunt of the crisis has fallen on the Turks, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Iraqis and the Lebanese.

All the goodwill, all the technology, all the appeals, all the solutions will not stop people fleeing wars, or climate change.

A smart phone can be a lifeline if you’ve had to leave everything else behind, because when you take to the roads, to the boats and to the trains, all our political leaders can think of is fences, barbed wire and more police.

There is only one way to help:

And that is to get Profit for Profit sake to contribute.

By placing a world Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $50,000, on all Sovereign Wealth funds Acquisitions. Combined this with a 0.00005% charge on all tweets, and all online purchases, on all google inquires, on all Facebook postings, etc.

Will create a permanent self funding resource of funds doing away with begging for resources.

Mr António Guterres should call a world summit of all Industrial world leaders not countries with a view to passing a people resolution to implement such a World Aid commission.

Then we might have some hope of a more peacefully world for all.

All suggestions and comments appreciate. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

THE BEADY EYE SHOUTS SHAME ON US. AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in European Union.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SHOUTS SHAME ON US. AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION.

Tags

European leaders, Mediterranean refugee crisis.

For crying out loud there can be no heart that has not being moved by the latest picture from the Mediterranean Shores.A Turkish border guard carries the body of a migrant child after a number of migrants died and a smaller number were reported missing after boats carrying them to the Greek island of Kos capsized, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum

If there is they don’t represent me. 

Europe for god sake of all places in the world has seen enough death in its history.

There is no point to a European Union if it can not united to help people fleeing War.

While Europe is squabbling, people are dying.

It time to stop the political diarrhea.

Some countries, like Sweden and Germany, are being generous with their acceptance of refugees, but warn that they cannot be this generous forever. Other countries, like Britain, are strictly applying regulations to dissuade migrants and asylum seekers, while opposing a European Commission proposal in June for mandatory quotas for settlement, to help share the burden.

There is no European Union standard for asylum; no common list of countries regarded as in conflict, and thus more likely to produce refugees; and no collective centers where asylum seekers can be met, housed, fed and screened.

On the Greek crisis, “we had one meeting after another at the highest level,”  these are people not money perhaps that is the difference.

For crying out loud get your fingers out of your self loving arse holes. 

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Beady Eye weeps at Europe’s Pontius Pilate Hand Wringing welcome of Refugees.

08 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in European Union., Humanity., Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

EU, Humanity, Mediterranean refugee crisis.

Shame on us all.

Our Grandparents must be weeping in their graves. 

If the shoe was on the other foot we be howling blue murder.

I always thought any one fleeing a war was called a Refugee not an Immigrant. Many important issues depend greatly on definitions of who is a migrant.

The vicious civil war in Syria has triggered a huge exodus. Afghans, Eritreans and other nationalities are also fleeing poverty and human rights abuses. All created by us in the first place. 

There is no such thing as an EU or European immigration policy.

Immigration has become a toxic political issue; especially as high levels of unemployment and the economic crisis have fueled a growing anti-immigration sentiment across Europe.

Throughout history, people have migrated from one place to another.

People try to reach European shores for different reasons and through different channels. They look for legal pathways, but they risk also their lives, to escape from political oppression, war and poverty, as well as to find family reunification, entrepreneurship, knowledge and education.

Europe's Migration Crisis

Every person’s migration tells its own story.

Since the beginning of the year some 153,000 migrants have been detected at Europe’s external borders.

Faced with that influx, Europe is currently the most dangerous destination for irregular migration in the world, and the Mediterranean Sea the world’s most dangerous border crossing.

With nationalist parties ascendant in many member states and concerns about Islamic terrorism looming large across the continent, it remains unclear if political headwinds will facilitate a new climate of immigration reform.

Hungary has urged its EU partners not to send back migrants who have traveled on from Hungary. And it plans to fence off the whole border with Serbia.

The UK has high levels of opposition to immigration. Opposition to the arrival of immigrants in the UK is far from new. People in Britain are more likely than the people of other nations to view immigration negatively – to see immigration as a problem rather than an opportunity, and to view the immigrant population as already too large.

This is not surprising, given that members of the public are often not well-versed in the details of policy in any area.

After months of argument EU leaders agreed to triple funding for Triton, to some €120m (£86m) – taking it back to the spending levels of Italy’s Mare Nostrum.

A drop in the Ocean.

A portfolio of policies is required to reduce irregular migration, certainly including border control, but combined with addressing the root causes of conflict and poverty, combating smuggling and trafficking, effective migration management and return, and the regulation of labor markets.

More restrictive policies will only narrow options for desperate people and drive more of them into the arms of migrant smugglers and traffickers.

Experience around the world demonstrates that border control is not a silver bullet. In the absence of a coordinated EU approach, migrants — and their smugglers — will continue to target countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain as entry points;

They will remain clandestine even if they may have a strong asylum claim;

They will continue to work in the informal labor market or turn to crime to survive; and their rights will not be recognized or respected.

The downside of making policy on immigration in this environment strongly outweighs the upside.

There is no political space to promote liberal policies on migration; while politicians at least behind closed doors know that restrictive policies are unlikely to work.

In the absence of a reasoned debate, a comprehensive policy response, a coordinated EU approach, and the political courage to confront irregular migration, Europe’s immigration nightmare has only just begun.

This is an opportunity for the EU to face up to the need to strike the right balance in its migration policy and send a clear message to citizens that migration can be better managed collectively by all EU actors.

A clear and well implemented framework for legal pathways to entrance in the EU (both through an efficient asylum and visa system) will reduce push factors towards irregular stay and entry, contributing to enhance security of European borders as well as safety of migratory flows.

The EU is  facing a series of long-term economic and demographic challenges. Its population is ageing, while its economy is increasingly dependent on highly-skilled jobs. It is going to need thousands of immigrants if it going to survive Climate Change.

We need a new model of legal migration:

A summer of “Europe’s shame” headlines looms. The politicians may well lose control as events dictate political outcomes.

Give a door to Humanity a try rather than the I’am all right Jack Economy.

May all of those that have lost their lives in vane rest in peace. 

There go I but for the grace of The European Union should be our Mantra.

 

 

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Roughly half of global aid—is “phantom aid”

28 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in WORLD POVERTY WHERE'S THE GLOBAL OUTRAGE

≈ Comments Off on Roughly half of global aid—is “phantom aid”

Tags

Agricultural subsidies, Development Aid., Distribution of wealth, Earth Quakes in Nepal, Hurricane Katrina., Inequility, Mediterranean refugee crisis., Natural disaster, THE UNITED NATIONS, Typhoon Hagupit.

Many in the first world imagine the amount of money spent on aid to developing countries is massive.

In fact, it amounts to only 0.3% of GNP of the industrialized nations.

Most wealthy nations spend far more on military than development.  Northern countries exhibiting mercantilist, or monopoly capitalist principles, rather than free market capitalism, even though that is what is preached to the rest of the world.

Aid Amounts are dwarfed By Effects Of First World Subsidies, Third World Debt, Unequal Trade, Etc.  Aid does not aid the recipient, it aids the donor.

There are numerous forms of aid, from humanitarian emergency assistance, to food aid, military assistance, etc. Development aid has long been recognized as crucial to help poor developing nations grow out of poverty. In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National Income) as official international development aid, annually.

This year it is estimated that $37 billion—roughly half of global aid—is “phantom aid”  

Year after year almost all rich nations have constantly failed to reach their agreed obligations of the 0.7% target.  Instead of 0.7%, the amount of aid has been around 0.2 to 0.4%, some $150 billion short each year.

Considering the typical aid amount at around 0.25 to 0.4% of GNI for over 40 years, the total shortfall is a substantial and staggering amount: just under $5 trillion aid shortfall at 2012 prices:

And you wonder why we have problems in the world. 

Rich nations have rarely met their actual promised targets. Recent increases [in foreign aid] do not tell the whole truth about rich countries’ generosity, or the lack of it. Moreover, development assistance is often of dubious quality.

For example, the US is often the largest donor in dollar terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms of meeting the stated 0.7% target.

Most aid does not actually go to the poorest who would need it the most.

For example,

  • The US recently increased its military budget by some $100 billion dollars alone
  • Europe subsidizes its agriculture to the tune of some $35-40 billion per year, even while it demands other nations to liberalize their markets to foreign competition.
  • The US also introduced a $190 billion dollar subsidy to its farms through the US Farm Bill, also criticized as a protectionist measure.
  • While aid amounts to around $70 to 100 billion per year, the poor countries pay some $200 billion to the rich each year.

Some of the largest benefactors of European agricultural subsidies include the Queen of England and other royalties in Europe. 

Furthermore, aid has often come with a price of its own for the developing nations:

Sub-Saharan Africa is a massive $272 billion worse off because of ” free” trade policies forced on them as a condition of receiving aid and debt relief.

Aid amounts are also dwarfed by rich country protectionism that denies market access for poor country products, while rich nations use aid as a lever to open poor country markets to their products.

Aid systems based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipients’ make development assistance inefficient.

  • In effect then, there is more aid to the rich than to the poor.
  • The US, Europe and Japan spend $350 billion each year on agricultural subsidies (seven times as much as global aid to poor countries)
  • These subsidies are crippling Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty.

Rich countries might be going through some tough times but that doesn’t change the fact that they owe the rest of the world. Rich countries need to switch from traditional forms of aid-giving to supporting global goods in new ways.

The UK gave not £10, not £1, but 56p ($0.91) in overseas aid for every £100 ($163) we earned as a country. On average, since 1990, we have given even less, 35p ($0.57).

Being truly generous requires rich countries to undergo fairly profound changes in the way they have lived for the last few decades.

We are creating is hugely unequal societies that will in the long run bite our hands off.

To suggest that we should seek to help the poorest at home by withdrawing support from people abroad who are much poorer, while the rich make off with their millions, is surely morally indefensible in any philosophy. It will take a long time to carry out the radical reform needed to bring aid to something verging on sanity and fairness.

Rich countries need to be more generous not less and, they should be proud when they stand in solidarity with the worse off. For the OECD countries to meet their obligations for aid to the poorer countries is not an economic problem.

It is a political one.

Just look at the most recent EU plans to allow only 5,000 refugees for resettlement by asylum seekers in response to the Mediterranean refugee crisis.

Wow I can’t say but I am impressed.

If they offered 5,000 places to persons qualifying for protection. That would be one 30th of the number of immigrants who reached Europe in 2014. This year more than 36,000 of them have arrived in countries like Italy, Malta and Greece.

They need to make a commitment to resettle all the refugees who get over to Europe immediately as a basic humanitarian gesture, and then they need to get onto the problem of providing the resources and the funds to countries that have been decimated by Western foreign policy over the last 10-15 years. That would cost again a fraction of the amount of money that was spent on occupying Afghanistan, bombing Iraq; the amount of money that is pumped into Israel to ensure that they clamp down and repress the Palestinian people.

Western powers need to end their war policy in the Middle East, recognize the responsibility for the catastrophe in the region, and pump billions of pounds of emergency aid into the destroyed countries.

With the recent Earth Quakes in Nepal the eyes of the world will once again focus for a few weeks on the disaster and Aid. There will be the usual outpouring of support and offers of aid.

Every country’s foreign aid is a tool of foreign policy.

For example you would wonder why when Hurricane Katrina hit the richest country in the world.

  • Bangladesh offered $1 million and a disaster management team. The monetary aid was accepted, but the disaster management team was ultimately turned down on September 14, 2005.
  • “Pakistan offered doctors and paramedics, and $1 million to the American Red Cross, tents, sheets and pillows. The monetary aid was accepted, but the material aid was turned down on September 14, 2005.
  • “Honduras offered experts on flooding, sanitation and rescue personnel. This aid was turned down on October 6, 2005.
  • The government of Kuwait made the largest offer, with $100 million in cash and $400 million in oil. Because of the delay in accepting this aid, Kuwait eventually gave its monetary support to two private groups in order to support relief indirectly.

Not forgetting the most embarrassing diplomatic snafu during Hurricane Katrina involved the donation of nearly 400,000 Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) from the United Kingdom, which the U.S. government gladly accepted in September of 2005. That acceptance, however, had to be rescinded shortly thereafter when it was learned that the British MREs contained beef, which the U.S. still banned at that time due to the outbreak of mad-cow disease in the UK in the mid-1990s.

Furthermore, while $854 million was pledged, not all of this money reached the U.S.

My point here is-  if the USA could not handle the assistance on offer so what hope had the Philippines and now Nepal.

It begs the question as to why in this age of technology there is no software package to coordinator and track the Aid on offer.

It appears that the sheer number of donations from foreign countries only help complicate matters.

Take the Philippines currently suffering from Typhoon Hagupit. The country was donated by the US more than $37 million worth of food and relief goods to those who were affected by the typhoon. Whether it was ever delivered no one knows.

Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it;  All too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.

'Total aid from all development assistance committee countries at a Glance, 2011-2012' from the OECD

Some aid money that is pledged often involves double accounting of sorts. Sometimes offers have even been reneged or just not delivered.

Aid tied with conditions cut the value of aid to recipient countries by some 25-40 percent, because it obliges them to purchase uncompetitive priced imports from the richer nations.

European and American farm subsidies “are crippling Africa’s chance to export its way out of poverty. It kicks away the ladder by which Africa could eventually climbed out of poverty. It purpose is to deprive others of the means of climbing up the ladder.

And to top it all we are now looking at the privatization of water and water services where the poor often can no longer access clear drinking water.

I suppose we have to grateful for the aid that does reach where it is needed whether it is privately donated or otherwise. As we all know when in need you get to know your friends.

Share this:

  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Skype
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

All comments and contributions much appreciated

  • THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT WHEN CULTURES COLLIDE? January 29, 2023
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: THE UKRAINE WAR IS NOW A WAR WHERE THERE CAN BE NO WINNERS. HERE ARE SOME ENTRENCHED TRUTHS. January 26, 2023
  • THE BEADY EYE: HIGHLIGHTS ANOTHER KILLER OF THE PLANET – MOBILE PHONES. January 25, 2023
  • THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: SOONER RATHER THAN LATER THERE WLL BE NO REAL INDEPENDENT SELF LEFT. JUST A DOWN LOAD OF ONESELF. January 24, 2023
  • THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT FOR HUMANS TO ACCEPT THE TRUTH. IF WE DON’T THE TRUTH WILL BE CONSTRUCT BY ALGORITHMS AND DATA. January 21, 2023

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013

Talk to me.

bobdillon33@gmail.co… on THE BEADY EYE SAYS: WELCOME TO…
OG on THE BEADY EYE SAYS: WELCOME TO…
benmadigan on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. ONC…
Sidney Fritz on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: CAN…
Bill Blake on THE BEADY EYE SAYS. FOR GOD SA…

Blogroll

  • Discuss
  • Get Inspired
  • Get Polling
  • Get Support
  • Learn WordPress.com
  • Theme Showcase
  • WordPress Planet
  • WordPress.com News

7/7

Moulin de Labarde 46300
Gourdon Lot France
0565416842
Before 6pm.

My Blog; THE BEADY EYE.

My Blog; THE BEADY EYE.
bobdillon33@gmail.com

bobdillon33@gmail.com

Free Thinker.

View Full Profile →

Follow bobdillon33blog on WordPress.com

Blog Stats

  • 80,692 hits

Blogs I Follow

  • unnecessary news from earth
  • The Invictus Soul
  • WordPress.com News
  • WestDeltaGirl's Blog
  • The PPJ Gazette
Follow bobdillon33blog on WordPress.com
Follow bobdillon33blog on WordPress.com

The Beady Eye.

The Beady Eye.
Follow bobdillon33blog on WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

unnecessary news from earth

WITH MIGO

The Invictus Soul

The only thing worse than being 'blind' is having a Sight but no Vision

WordPress.com News

The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community.

WestDeltaGirl's Blog

Sharing vegetarian and vegan recipes and food ideas

The PPJ Gazette

PPJ Gazette copyright ©

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • bobdillon33blog
    • Join 198 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • bobdillon33blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: