Wilde seeks rise in assistance budget

Press, 21 May 1988, Page 5

Wilde seeks rise in assistance budget

PA Wellington New Zealand should increase the overseas development assistance budget, the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Wilde, said yesterday. Giving assistance to developing countries helped lift their people’s standard of living but the donor country also benefited, she told the Wellington Young Women’s Christian Association’s annual meeting.

“Many New Zealanders question the justice of development assistance,” she said.

“Is it just to give any aid at all when people at home surely have first priority to this nation’s resources? Is it just to give aid to countries whose political and'social systems seem to us to be inherently unjust?” A Government’s prime responsibility to the welfare of its own people did not mean it should ignore the rest of humanity.

Quoting a former Prime Minister, Mr Norman Kirk, she said, “While charity may begin at home it certainly doesn’t end there.”

On charges that by giving aid New Zealand supported undemocratic systems, Ms Wilde said everybody knew the world was unjust and imperfect.

“But are we to wait until the world is perfect, until each partner country has adopted, say, the Westminster style of government, before we deign to help them?” Altruism was a strong reason behind New Zealand’s aid. However, helping Third World countries improve their social and economic development also contributed to their stability, which was good for world-wide stability. New Zealanders were very generous when it came to giving money to help with distant famines or natural disasters. “Yet it greatly concerns me that as a nation we display little commitment to sharing a greater proportion of our national resources with underdeveloped countries,” she said. Compared with other developed countries, New Zealand’s record in pro-

viding development assistance was poor. As a percentage of gross national product, New Zealand’s official development assistance, worth more than $lOO million last year, was well below the average of other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development members. “The Government can’t just appropriate more money. To do so needs a clear mandate from the community,” said Ms Wilde.

“I would like New Zealand women to join me in the struggle for a greater commitment to development assistance.” New Zealand had a code of conduct to make sure narrow or short-term foreign policy goals did not interfere with the main purpose of development assistance, which was to “promote sustainable economic and social progress in developing countries.”

Assistance was provided in response to specific requests from the recipient Government on the basis of their own plans, she said.