Aid effort down

Press, 3 July 1979, Page 16

Aid effort down

NZPA London New Zealand is near the bottom of the “League” of the Western world’s major aid-giving nations, but its generosity is still well ahead of that of many richer nations. The latest assessment of overseas development aid granted by 17 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, rates New Zealand tenth. The survey is limited to members of the O.E.C.D.’s development assistance committee and rates individual nations on aid given as a percentage of individual gross national product. New Zealand’s aid to gross national product ratio has declined each year since it peaked at

0.52 per cent in 1975. It dropped to 0.34 per cent last year. “While New Zealand, like other committee members, raised its overseas development aid in United States dollars in 1978, it was the only member whose outflow in national currency declined,” the O.E.C.D. said. The aid table was topped by Norway and Sweden, whose aid levels stood at 0.9 per cent of G.N.P. followed by the Netherlands (0.82 per cent), Denmark (0.75), France (0.571, Belgium and Canada (0.52), Australia (0.45), Britain (0.40), New Zealand (0.34), West Germany (0.31), Austria (0.27), United States and Japan (0.23), Switzerland (0.20), Finland (0.18), and Italy (0.10).