Janet Bush: Poor nations beware - there are no free rides on the West's
dollars-for-disasters carousel
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/story.jsp?story=603634
23 January 2005
The finance ministers of the G7, which groups the seven richest
countries in the world, meet in London in less than a fortnight under
the chairmanship of Gordon Brown, fresh from his mini-tour of Africa.
Since the Boxing Day tsunami, the sound of governments bidding in a
Dutch auction of generosity has grown to a roar and some kind of
ground-breaking deal for the developing world is expected.
So can we finally be confident that our governments are going to do the
right thing? The answer, in all probability, is no, if the past is
anything to go by. One hallmark of rich-nation behaviour is that
impressive promises of help hardly ever translate fully into hard cash.
Less than one third of the aid promised to Central America after
Hurricane Mitch in 1998 was ever disbursed; post-Taliban Afghanistan
got about two thirds; the people of Bam in Iran, devastated by an
earthquake in 2003, less than half.
Janet Bush
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