Disgraceful

[ChristInAction]

For a country with so much.
& a country that is really caring when it wants to be.

Australia only donates 30cents out of every $100 to help end world hunger.
I guess I cant be suprised.. we cant even help stop our own poverty. *shrugg*
Its more then others, like NZ, Japan & USA. But why setal for more then them. Why not aim for higher?
We dont even have a target goal date to donate 0.7% of our income.


I encorage you guys to check out www.freerice.com, just play their game & they can give 20grains of rice to starving people for every correct answer.
It also has the fact above & more.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Kevin Rudd promised before the election campaign to the Make Poverty History Coalition he will increase that to 0.5%. It's no 0.7...but it's not 0.3%

Which Territory are you from Eastern or Southern? I'm being nominated as my youth rep on the youth council...except i have no idea what that is or what it's for...but i'd like to put some social justice things on the agenda. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[ChristInAction]

thats good, although I have a tendency to not believe what anyone says untill after its happened.

I'm from sounthen.
I think we have one of those, but we call it like... that youth adviery board. 2 people from my corp are on it.
That'd be great if you were able to get some social juctice. We really need more oppotunity to help in that area being youth.

 

[tigercub]

It amazes me that Australia isn't #1 when it comes to charitable donations.

I think Ireland is. Pretty cool for a country that has only recovered from extreme national poverty in recent years.

 

[ebia]

It amazes me that Australia isn't #1 when it comes to charitable donations.

I think Ireland is. Pretty cool for a country that has only recovered from extreme national poverty in recent years.

Not really - poor counties and people are often more generous than rich ones. And the Catholic Church has always had very strong teaching on social justice in the Irish tradition.

The more money people have, the more they try and hang on to it.

 

[tigercub]

Not really - poor counties and people are often more generous than rich ones. And the Catholic Church has always had very strong teaching on social justice in the Irish tradition.

The more money people have, the more they try and hang on to it.

Still pretty cool.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

It is pretty cool. Fits in with my theory that to understand you gotta have from that perspective. If you've come from poverty, you're more likely to sympathise.

 

[Monarchist]

I saw recently only 20% of money donated to a charity was ending up in the charities pocket, the rest went to the collector.
Has me thinking.

 

[ebia]

I saw recently only 20% of money donated to a charity was ending up in the charities pocket, the rest went to the collector.
Has me thinking.

That depends on how you are donating. Some forms of donation are particularly bad. If you are giving directly to one of the major agencies (Salvos, World Vision, Oxfam, Caritas, whatever) the vast majority of the money goes to do whatever the project is. (A small proportion necessarily going towards administration - you can't operate without some costs however frugul you are.) If you give to street collectors or similar who are not volunteers of the charity being collected for then a substantial proportion can go in collecting fees.

The 20% would be a worst-case example and would only apply to a tiny proportion of money collected.

 

[Anduril]

Reducing poverty is not always a case of just handing out money but supporting strategic initiatives that create lasting benefits. For example trade liberalisation, spending on education and infrastructure, and promoting democracy. Handing out money can often do more harm than good. Also most of these poor countries have corrupt governments and so unless you get rid of the tyrants like Mugabe they will never escape the poverty cycle.

 

[ebia]

Reducing poverty is not always a case of just handing out money but supporting strategic initiatives that create lasting benefits. For example trade liberalisation, spending on education and infrastructure, and promoting democracy. Handing out money can often do more harm than good. Also most of these poor countries have corrupt governments and so unless you get rid of the tyrants like Mugabe they will never escape the poverty cycle.

That's true to a point, but neither can we sit back and let people starve in meantime.

Of couse a lot of aid charities such as Oxfam, Caritas and World Vision are heavily involved in projects that work towards long-term sustainability. They aren't just about emergency relief (important thought that is) and proping people up.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

Theres actually a bit going about World Vision at the moment. As far as I know a lot of World Vision staff are paid. So there efficiency certainly is not as high as I thought it would be. Do you think the people that man the stalls for World Vision should get paid? I mean at the end of the day, it's their business model...but it surprised me a bit when I found that out. I know Salvos in America work on 85% efficiency, and one of the other aid organisations I work for work on 75%. I think World Vision may run on 60-50, not sure.

Some charities of course invest all their collections on the organisation and then expand. The argument is that a bigger organisation will collect more. Is that wrong? no, not in my opinion.
For sure making lasting impact is important, that is the ultimate aim of aid. I hope by trade liberalisation you don't mean free trade (for now) because that would at this point, just destroy the already fragile economies of the poor. Debt cancellation is a huge issue. Economies who spend any sort of income paying of debt is obviously never going to be able to spend it on the actual country.
Meeting ridiculous debt requirements is stupid, for both the debtor and the creditor.

 

[ebia]

Theres actually a bit going about World Vision at the moment. As far as I know a lot of World Vision staff are paid. So there efficiency certainly is not as high as I thought it would be. Do you think the people that man the stalls for World Vision should get paid? I mean at the end of the day, it's their business model...but it surprised me a bit when I found that out. I know Salvos in America work on 85% efficiency, and one of the other aid organisations I work for work on 75%. I think World They are aren't a volunteer based organisation it's true, but there simply aren't enough of those to do all the work that needs to be done. A quick check on World Vision's website (any good charity should have the equivalent information available):

In 2006, the generous gifts of our supporters helped us to create a better future for over 12.4 million people living in poverty:

In the last financial year (2006) World Vision’s revenue was spent in the following way:

• 78.3% Transforming communities overseas
  • 72.9% went towards community development and relief activities in the 57 countries where we work (this includes Child Sponsorship projects)
  • 2% was held back for distribution to community projects in 2007 (this mainly consists of goods donated by corporations)
  • 3.4% was used to fund our in-country operations to implement the community development projects

• 3.2% Global management and expertise
  • We improve efficiency and maximise economies of scale by sharing our experiences through the World Vision international partnership. Our experts and strategists in the international partnership office help with global strategy, specialty expertise and issues campaigning.
    
    A good example of this expertise is our Global Rapid Response Team, a group of emergency specialists who respond to a disaster within 24-72 hours. Other examples include our international health experts, who input to World Vision’s approach for tackling global issues like HIV/AIDS.

• 8.6% Fundraising
  • We invest a small amount each year to attract even more supporters through fundraising and Child Sponsorship campaigns.

• 1% Community Education
  • World Vision is working to educate and inform Australians about the causes of poverty and empower them to take action in order to achieve change. We are also engaging with the Australian Government and other key decision-makers to influence policies that affect the world’s poorest people.

• 0.4% Domestic Programs
  • We work with Indigenous Australians in a number of locations to help improve healthy lifestyles and leadership.

• 1.5% Project management here in Australia
  • World Vision has a team of professional staff in Australia who monitor and evaluate our overseas projects. The team works with our overseas staff to help improve the quality of the programs and increase local skills.

• 7% Administration
  • Cost saving initiatives reduced overheads and administration by over $1million during the 2006 financial year.

The child sponsorship programs, whether run by World Vision or anyone else, will run less efficently than other programs because there is much more admin required to keep the sponsors involved. But that's not the only aspect of World Visions work and they are very cost effective at delivering programs in the countries in which they operate.

.

For sure making lasting impact is important, that is the ultimate aim of aid. I hope by trade liberalisation you don't mean free trade (for now) because that would at this point, just destroy the already fragile economies of the poor.

Debt cancellation is a huge issue. Economies who spend any sort of income paying of debt is obviously never going to be able to spend it on the actual country.
Meeting ridiculous debt requirements is stupid, for both the debtor and the creditor.

Jubilee 2000 is, unfortunately, starting to get forgotten.

 

[ChristInAction]

I saw recently only 20% of money donated to a charity was ending up in the charities pocket, the rest went to the collector.
Has me thinking.

Most organisations need to take like 3% for their admineration cost b'coz face it, they cant work on nothing.
& I can speak for the salvos,
We're all & always vollenters when we do collection so, all the money we get goes to the cause.

 

[ChristInAction]

Reducing poverty is not always a case of just handing out money but supporting strategic initiatives that create lasting benefits. For example trade liberalisation, spending on education and infrastructure, and promoting democracy. Handing out money can often do more harm than good. Also most of these poor countries have corrupt governments and so unless you get rid of the tyrants like Mugabe they will never escape the poverty cycle.

yerr, we did a thing in humanities at school about that.

the salvos have just set up this fund so you can buy a community a goat for like $7, a wheelchair for like $300. Our youth is aiming to buy a child surgery $1000 next year.

So I think that, & getting people in there to teach them skills so they can make their own money are some great steps to bypass the goverment.

 

[Anduril]

I hope by trade liberalisation you don't mean free trade (for now) because that would at this point, just destroy the already fragile economies of the poor.

Thats what the anti-globalisationists would like you to believe. Do you think it's any coincidence that the poorest African countries are also the most protectionist?

 

[Anduril]

That's true to a point, but neither can we sit back and let people starve in meantime.

Of couse a lot of aid charities such as Oxfam, Caritas and World Vision are heavily involved in projects that work towards long-term sustainability. They aren't just about emergency relief (important thought that is) and proping people up.

Absolutely but I don't think you can just take one figure such as % of GDP contributed to measure a country's performance on reducing poverty.

 

[ebia]

Thats what the anti-globalisationists would like you to believe. Do you think it's any coincidence that the poorest African countries are also the most protectionist?

Actually the most effective protectionist economies are the richest - the US, the EU, and Japan!

It's just that they can manipulate the system to achieve it.

 

[ebia]

Absolutely but I don't think you can just take one figure such as % of GDP contributed to measure a country's performance on reducing poverty.

No, but lacking better measures and targets the give a rough idea.

However you measure it, we are using very little of our (relatively extreme) wealth to help those most in need.

 

[GodsoldierClintus]

You can't call on other countries to have free trade, and then subsidies your own farmers (the US). Unless trade talks are taken on a balanced level between both sides instead of the already rich countries bargaining to increase their wealth...any form of "globalisation" involving opening up of developing country markets will mean even worst conditions on the people. Of course that doesn't matter when money is made right?