A CAMPAIGN that wants the island to contribute more to Third World causes has released a statement backing the decision to spend £50,000 of taxpayers’ money in Africa.
Last week, Phil Gawne MHK, the chairman of the overseas aid committee, announced the government would pay £25,000 to help people displaced by fighting in Sudan and £25,000 to Sierra Leone after a cholera outbreak.
Kristina Crawford, a local teacher who’s described as a ‘global poverty ambassador’ and founder of the Point 1 campaign, said: ‘Sudan and Sierra Leone require immediate help. Without the Isle of Man government’s immediate assistance, we would not have been able fulfilling our moral responsibility to help some of the world’s most vulnerable people in their time of need.
‘Today we spend less than 0.07 per cent GDP on overseas aid, a tiny amount by international standards. If we’re a responsible nation we should increase this to at least 0.1 per cent, still leaving 99.9 per cent to be spent at home. It would benefit not only the world’s poorest, but also the Isle of Man’s international reputation, and would give us new opportunities for exposure to business opportunities in developing countries.’
As the Manx Independent reported last week, the money will be given to Oxfam so it will get directly to people on the ground in Sudan and Sierra Leone, to get as efficiently as possible to those who need it. As Serena Tramonti from Oxfam said in a letter to the Examiner last week:
‘For every pound given to Oxfam, 83p goes directly to emergency work, campaigning or development work; 10p is spent on support costs – we need to make sure that how we spend money is well monitored for example- and 7p is invested in creating future revenue – which is what any other wise organisation or business would do.’
The Point 1 campaign aims of increasing the Isle of Man’s contribution to overseas aid to 0.1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.