Striipes - Care for children on this International Day of Families

On May 15, the UN International Day of Families, Striipes lifts up attentiveness of the challenges which are disturbing today’s families. The transforms on the international economic setting and its consequences on the majority susceptible, specifically children, have been basically unnoticed. It is a chance to bring awareness to their dilemma.

A hot bath, a nice and comfortable bed, a lullaby is not made for few people. Suitable sleeping states denote a lot extra than having a safe place to relax. A sparkling bed makes us believe at home and tell again of thrilling bedside stories and moments shared with family.

There are diverse concerns that are regular with over two million of the world’s most susceptible children and their families. Sleeping in overcrowded and unclean places, getting awash all night and lost security as well as loving family care, are everyday threat of children getting ailing and will not be capable to spotlight on their schooling.

There are few facts which will provide practical alternatives for lawmakers and others who desire to do a little at the present to make family life better in future. We can shore up these children and their families in humanizing their accommodation condition in a helpful and permanent way. This lesser the everyday stress on all family associates, facilitates room for regular moments and makes permanence for their children.

  

Every child ought to have a family somewhere he or she belongs, thinks loved and protected. The significance of a whole family is countless and the emotional safety it expresses is the most surprising experience a child, or an adult, can have.

The economic disasters harshly affected parents loving and surviving capabilities. Insufficient livelihood states and the fight for economic endurance produce pressure and anguish. 

Poverty can visible itself in different methods:  

·         The fight to declare polite housing and nourishment for children

·         Uncertainties about being capable to give bills

·         The hunt for revenue and the concern of losing a job

·         Social pressure to achieve well

·         Continual health troubles due to inadequate nourishment, sanitation or healthcare.

Today the international priority is to help families care for children. Despite of their locale, children should survive in a family who will hold up them to reach their prospective. But if it is not practicable for a child to stay with his or her genetic family, he or she may find a new residence.

Striipes - Grants come with a Price

Can we measure the gap between a developed nation and a developing nation?

Absolutely NO! The gap is deep and broad enough in terms of various aspects such as financial strength, infrastructure, health, education, employment, and so on. Each basic parameter that supports a content life to the citizens is considerably lacking in developing nations as compared to the developed nations.This incepted the process of Foreign aid or development assistance through which the developed nations are supposed to provide development aid to upgrade the socio-economic conditions of the developing nations, especially of the poorer class over there.

In regards to this the developed countries agreed at UN to offer 0.7% of their GNP(Gross National Product) as development assistance to the developing countries,annually. This pledge was taken on 1970 and by 2015 (the year marked as the accomplishing year of Millennium Development Goals MDG) the pledge will be 45 years old. However, considering an annual assistance of 0.7% of Gross National Product from rich countries, 45 years were more than enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals.  But, the results are in front of us, development rate is yet very slow. 0.7% of Gross National Product means billions and billions of dollars, which could have successfully made the intended development in last 45 years but what went wrong? Why only rich grew richer and poor section of 2^nd and 3rd countries still tangled into poverty?

The answer in one line is ‘Foreign Development Aids/Grants comes with a Price’. No doubt the developing nations are providing development aid but more to prescribe and less to empower. The development aid from donor nations has been poor in quality as well as quantity. The quality of the aid is poor because these aids have often come with a price which in some way or other has made the second and third world countries suffer. Tied with various kinds of restrictive conditions, Aid Money as a foreign policy tool appears more benefiting to the donor than the recipient. Cited below are some of the major forms of price that a developing nation pays off to receive the development aid from the Donor countries:

Aid money often gets wasted on conditions like the recipient country must use the overpriced services and goods from the donor country.  Sometimes the recipient is made bound to purchase goods only from the donor nation.

While Aid money is basically meant for the development of the poor section of the developing nations, but in most of the cases the money doesn’t actually  get utilized for the intended purpose, rather it gets consumed by the competent section of the aid receiving nation.

 

For the donor nations the giving away of aid money is more of a trade policy through which they can prescribe their products to the receiving country, and less of a development policy to empower the deprived sections. Toe the line with this,the donor countries aims at establishing their markets in the urban areas of developing countries as there they receive more consumers of their overpriced foreign products.

Moreover,since years, donor nations are failing to meet their obligation of 0.7% of Gross National Product. Although each year many dollars are donated but the amount is much lower on Gross National Product percent. Over the years Aid has increased but still remains way below obligations. The sad news is that most of the rich nations fail to meet the obligation of  offering foreign aid equivalent to their 0.7%of Gross National Product.

Theoverall calculation shows that money is flowing more from the poorer to rich development aid Grantscountries than from rich to poor countries. 

Striipes - Decline in Official Development Assistance to Developing Nations in the Last Decade.

Developing nations have witnessed a massive decline in the inflow of aids from the developed Nations. India is no exception in it, as it has also experienced a considerable cut down in its official development assistance(ODA) extended by the donor countries. The following data throws a clear factuallight over the declining development aid assistance to India in the last decade.

• According to the OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) data,the decline in the aid to India incepted from the year 1994.
• In the year 1994, India received an aid of $2.3 billion, which got reduced to $1.6 billion in the year 1997. With this figure also, India continued to be the third largest recipient after China and Egypt in the year 1997.
• During that period of 1994 to 1997, the global aid volume dropped by more than $10 billion.
• In the year 1998, owing to nuclear tests, many donor nations imposed certain sanctions that further lowered the aid flow to India. Japan, which stood as the largest bilateral aid contributor in the year 1997, extending $492 million, suspended its new yen loans and aid for technical cooperation. It only kept minimal grant assistance open to those non-governmental organizations of India.
• Likewise,during this period Sweden also terminated its three-year cooperation agreement with India. Even Norway kept its aid assistance limited to poverty alleviation programs only while freezing all other aids.
• Denmark and Germany also knocked down the negotiations of aid increment.
• Even the aid from the member Nations of the UN also witnessed a sharp fall in the last decade.

The fall in the aid flow to India and other the developing nations as well from Developed countries have got triggered owing to the increment in the private capital flows. In 1980s, the volume of aid was much higher than the private capital flows but in the last decade, the growth in the private capital inflow to the developing nations dramatically outstripped aid volume by manifold.

Why the Inflow of Aid to Developing nations has declined?

In light of the on going discussions, it is important to understand the region of decline in the volume of official development assistance for developing countries. The expansion of the private capital, as mentioned above,is certainly one of the prime reasons. The aid administrators of Donor countries are under continuous pressure, as never before, to show their return on investment, and this has certainly led to a change in the thinking of the aid bureaucracies, which has made this shift from official development aid tolines of private capital.

Further, with the end of the Cold War, the developed nations nomore feel the need of propping up allies in different developing countries,which used to be one of the major reasons that incepted the process ofdevelopment aid from developed nations to developing nations.

Another important reason for aid decline is the emergence ofprivate capital as a contributor to official aid budgets. Previously, officialaid budgets were the preserve of governments only, now private capital alsogets included in the official aid budgets, this has made some major changes.For instance, The UNDP (United Nations Development Program) announced thelaunch of a Global Sustainable Development Facility, where teach majortransnational corporations will make a contribution of around $50,000.

The private capital is mostly received by a handful of fastdeveloping nations like china and India. However, the very poor nations likeMozambique are likely to suffer more from this decline of aid owing to the factthat  there aid constitutes around  60% of gross national product (GDP) as comparedto 0.6% in  India.

Striipes - From aid beneficiary to donor country: India’s roadmap ahead.

Till 1992, India was one of the largest recipients of foreign aid in the world. But down the line the economic structure of India has changed remarkably and it has emerged out in the global forum as a middle income country. Because of this change and various other contributing factors, the inflow of foreign aid to India is also receiving certain alterations; one of the biggest among these is the Britain’s decision of cutting its aid to India by 2015. But the question is whether this decision affects the socio economic growth of India in any way?Well, this is a strong debate topic, which will definitely need a vast discussion supported with strong facts and figures to justify either of the aspects that yes, India needs Foreign aid or Not, India doesn't need foreign aid. 

If to believe India’s former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee then India is no more in need of foreign aid, as he quotes “‘we do not require the aid. It is a peanut in our total development spending.” To a great extent that is the fact also, because at today’s date the foreign aid that India is receiving is less than 0.3% of its GDP. And it's not that the donor countries are cutting down the aid, but India of its own has started declining foreign grants because the nation is getting competent in taking care of its own requirement.  A decade back due to the increased flow of foreign funds, India announced that it would only accept bilateral fund from Germany, Japan, Russia, UK and United States including EU.But after 2004 tsunami and the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, the country declined receiving international grants. And now, the country has accepted the Britain’s announcement of cutting its aid to India by 2015.

Apart from taking care of its in-house social and economic development projects, India is also marching ahead as one of the donor Nation extending its grants to various beneficiary nations. Although, there is no amalgamated figure on the gross foreign aid over the past decade, but India’s foreign assistance has increased with a compound growth rate. Its main aid beneficiaries are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Srilanka and Bangladesh. In 2011, India became the fifth largest donor to Afganistan, while its aid programs in Africa are increasing at a fast rate. In Africa, sizable aid activities were received by Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gambia,Ghana, Ivory Cost, Lesotho, Mauritius, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Moving ahead as a donor nation is currently important for India, if it’s to justify itself as one of the possible emerging super powers in the world. In all aspect the nation needs to get competent in taking up the responsibilities associated with tackling its domestic poverty, education problem, and others. The elite class of India holds huge potential in contributing huge donations for the domestic social development projects,apart from contributing money for international grant for the poorer section of its beneficiary countries. But, this aid assistance from India is seen lacking a well-defined objectives and approach as the aid flows through different channels and agencies.

Although, it's good that  India is aiming to emerge as a global development aid agency by setting up its own development agency, ‘The Development Partnership Administration’, but is India in a position to say no to its foreign donor countries and at the same time act as a donor country itself. India has this big responsibility to improve the lives of 456 million poor surviving in the country, who are living below the poverty line. In light of this, why the country is aiming to become a donor nation, while the domestic problems are still all prevalent. Is that India’s foreign aid assistance is surrounded by a clear set of commercial and political interests? Well, again, it’s a point of debate,stay tuned for the coming blogs.