Australian Foriegn Aid
Aid is the voluntary transfer of material resources and services from one country to another to benfeit the recipient country. The aim of aid is to assist the countries in their economy, to strengthen a military ally, extend cultural influence, and to be a signal of diplomatic approval. Aid can also come in several forms such as monetary aid, material resources (food and water) and services such as military training. It is grouped into humanitarian aid which is emergency aid and development aid which is given to help increase the socio-economic status of the country. Australia's aid began before WWII, when small amounts of money were given to Papua New Guinea. Currently Papua New Guinea is still the country that we aid the most. In 1950, the Colombo Plan came into force which was aimed at helping mainly South Asia. Then in the 1960s, South East Asia became more importan than South Asia due to countries decolonising. At first Australia had mostly bilateral aid agreements but over time the number of multilateral aid agreements increased. In 1984, the Jackson Review was produced to review over Australia's aid programs. It's clear aim was to approach aid by aiming at sustainability by country programs rather than individual projects. In 2000 Australia signed the United Nations Millenium Decleration with the aim to cut the number of people living in poverty by 2015. Our promised contribution to foreign aid was 0.7% of our Gross National Income per year. Currently we are only giving about half of what we promised with the lowest amount being $3.15 billion, giving us a rank of 15 out of the 22 participating countries. The youth of today have led more movements to put pressure on the government to increase the amount of foreign aid they are giving. Some examples are the 2006 Make Poverty History concert held in Melbourne and the Seven Road Trip which was a lobbying campaign. The region that we are linked to in terms of the aid link are is mainly...