Bob Geldorf in Brisbane of all places

Bob Geldof still thinks Australia is one of the meanest countries on Earth when it comes to its foreign aid program. So the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Bob Geldorf in Brisbane, November 2007

Geldorf gave an emphatic response when asked if Australia was shouldering its weight of the world's international aid.

"No, it's embarrassingly pathetic. In fact it is one of the meanest on the planet."

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has promised to increase Australia's overseas aid program - now just 0.3 per cent of GDP - to 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2015, if elected.

Geldof was still unimpressed, accusing Australia's leaders of breaking United Nations goals for foreign aid.

Geldof said Australia's commitment to foreign aid was well below the levels of other countries.

"I mean Britain will get to 0.51 per cent by 2012, France by 2013, and the European countries ... will get to 0.7 per cent by 2015," Sir Bob said.

"If you don't get to 0.5 per cent by 2010, you don't get to 0.7 per cent by 2015," he said.

Australia has agreed to the Millennium Development Goals of the UN and has promised to get to 0.7 per cent by 2015.

"And if people think that is a lot of money - what, is 99.3 per cent not enough for you all? Is it not enough?

"It's tragic."

.............

Yes, it is tragic. For the 20% of Tanzanian kids who die before their fifth birthday.

This week, Australians can make their vote count. Lobby your local candidate and seek their support for Australia to honour its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and end world poverty.

And, you can do your own bit by donating to the School of St Jude. Fighting Poverty Through Education.

Ban Ki-Moon calls attention

With most of sub-Saharan Africa currently off track for meeting goals for slashing poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy by 2015, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is convening an unprecedented meeting of development leaders to put the continent back on the rails to progress.



The MDG Africa Steering Group was set up by Mr. Ban after a report in June showed that despite faster growth and strengthened institutions, Africa at its present rate would fail to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.

At the G8 meeting in June, Mr Ban said,

This year marks the mid-point of our work to realize these goals by 2015. We have far to go indeed, especially in Africa. New statistics show we are making progress, but far too slowly to achieve the MDGS in time. This is why I have offered to chair a new MDG Africa Steering Group of all the major players to help refocus our efforts to achieve the MDGs in Africa. This will include the heads of the World Bank, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank, the AU [African Union], as well as the UN. I will chair the Steering Group and I welcome the support offered here in Heiligendamm for this initiative.

Achieving the MDGs will also depend upon a positive outcome of the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations and by serious follow-through on debt cancellation initiatives. I look forward to leadership by the G-8 countries in this regard.

This kind of international leadership is essential if the whole world community, rich and poor alike, are to work together to help the poorest countries lift themselves out of extreme poverty.



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Millennium Development Goals

Part of the fanfare for the new millennium was the United Nations announcement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There are eight broad goals and 18 specific targets. Each target is expressed in unequivocal terms that are easy to measure – the whole world can see when targets are not being met.

Goal 1, Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, has two specific targets –

• Target 1. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
• Target 2. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

As we are now halfway to the target year of 2015, it is time to look at what progress is being made. This graph shows the overall picture for Tanzania.


It is clear that, while progress has been made since 1990, at the current rate the 2015 targets won’t be met.

The UN reports that in terms of progress regarding the specific MDGs, by 2004 Tanzania had achieved targets in

• Primary school net enrollment (MDG 2 Universal Primary Education)
• Equity in primary education (MDG 3 Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women)
• Access to safe water (MDG 7 Ensure Environmental Sustainability).

• Tanzania is also on track to meeting female ratio targets in secondary schools (MDG 3) and other targets for MDGs 2 and 7. Furthermore, preliminary data from the Demographic Health Survey (2004/5) show a trend from 147 to 112 per 1,000 live births. Steep decline in under-five child mortality rates from 1999. While still preliminary, this is indeed very impressive and if such trends are maintained then Tanzania is also on track to achieve MDG 4 (Reduce Child Mortality).

So, it is fantastic that some of these early steps are being achieved. These are just the first steps on a long, hard journey. While overall primary school enrolment targets have been met, this has happened at the cost of ridiculously high class sizes in schools with untrained teachers and few books.

The next step is to keep building more classrooms, keep training more teachers and keep buying more books, equipment and computers for all the new students.

The School of St Jude is making a big contribution towards the MDGs because it gives the poorest children access to a well-equipped school, class sizes of 30 and teachers that get ongoing training to improve their skills. This is possible thanks to the many contributions made by hundreds of supporters world-wide. With your help, we can see the end of extreme poverty in our lifetimes.



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Tanzanian women – world leaders

The new Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has appointed a Tanzanian woman for the top job, as the Deputy Secretary General. Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro is currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Republic of Tanzania. Prior to this post, she was the Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children. In her academic career, Dr. Migiro rose to the rank of a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Dar-es-Salaam.

Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro – UN Deputy Secretary General

Mr. Ban said, "She is a highly respected leader who has championed the cause of developing countries over the years. Through her distinguished service in diverse areas, she has displayed outstanding management skills with wide experience and expertise in socio-economic affairs and development issues.

"I have deep confidence in and respect for her, and intend to delegate much of the management and administrative work of the Secretariat, as well as socio-economic affairs and development issues, under a clear line of authority to ensure that the Secretariat will function in a more effective and efficient manner."

Dr Migiro has a master's degree in law from the University of Dar es Salaam and a doctorate in law from Germany's Konstanz University. She lives with her husband and two daughters.
With the UN appointment, she will be the highest ranking woman at the United Nations and the second-highest among all UN officials.

This appointment shows that, with the benefit of a good education, Tanzanians can contribute at a global level. Your support of the School of St Jude will help ensure that hundreds of capable children from the poorest families will get an excellent education, making them the future leaders of Tanzania, and the world.

The task ahead

The very poorest countries depend on foreign aid for their basic functioning. Major aid comes through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the UN and donor countries. Because they hold the purse strings, these donors have a strong influence on African policy.

School enrollment rates in sub Saharan countries soared for two decades until 1980, when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund demanded that African governments slash public spending to deal with a wave of economic crises. As spending stagnated, so did schools. During the 1980s, the region’s enrollment rates languished. In Mali, the spending cuts meant that all but three teacher training institutes were closed. No wonder education suffered.


You could say that the current education standards in Africa are a direct result of the actions of Western donor countries. Donors seem to have seen the error of their ways and they have reignited the push for basic education in the 1990s. Wealthy nations and global lenders like the World Bank increased contributions to basic education in sub-Saharan Africa by almost half in just four years, to an average of $723 million a year in 2003 and 2004, according to Unesco.

Yet even this will not enable the region to meet the United Nations’ millennium target of assuring all children a sixth-grade education by 2015. At current spending levels, the World Bank estimates, that will take sub-Saharan nations another 50 years. Achieving it within the next decade would require a ninefold increase in aid, Unesco’s experts say. They argue that donors should shift funds to Africa from other, less needy parts of the world and to primary schools from higher education.

Today’s development experts say that education is the region’s best hope. Only by educating children through at least the sixth grade, they say, can Africa attack the rise in poverty that has left it trailing the rest of the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, the average adult’s schooling ends at the third grade. Two in five are illiterate. No nation has ever achieved rapid and sustained economic growth with a population so poorly educated, the World Bank says.

There's a good article in the New York Times on this topic.

The School of St Jude provides quality education for 850 children from the poorest families around Arusha, Tanzania. It is a centre of excellence that is supported by private donors from Australia and other countries.