| Health
& Education Aid |
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What Kind of Aid Goes to Kids?
DAC nations give different amounts of
money to different kind of development efforts, such as agriculture,
energy, education, and health. Basic education and health
are two areas that are especially important to the proper
development of children. Let's look at the percentage of their
total aid that DAC countries give to these areas:
Education funding
Children in developing countries need
education to get a good start in life and break the cycle
of poverty that limits their future. Every year, DAC counties
commit the amount of aid that they will give in certain categories.
In the graph below, the amount of aid that they have committed
for 1999 is expressed as a percentage of the total aid they
would give.
For
example, Austria committed 19.8% of its aid budget in 1999
to education. 19.3% went to general education, which includes
education and instruction, policy research and school building
construction at all levels. Only 0.5% of Austria's budget
was committed to basic education, which "includes primary,
basic life skills for youth and adults and early childhood
education." These areas are most important for children. The
DAC average percentage of money given for basic education
was 1.8%. Do you think that this small amount reflects a real
commitment to the future of the world's youth?
* Figures for basic education
commitments for France, Greece, and Ireland were not available.
* France's data is from 1998.
* For the full table from which data
on this page was obtained, please see OECD
Table 19
Health Funding
Health care is another area which is vital
to the future of the world's youth. Without immunization from
disease and access to proper medical treatment when they are
sick, how can children reach their full potential? Below is
the percentage of aid that DAC countries committed to basic
health care in 1999. Basic health is "basic health care provision,
training of basic health personnel and development of basic
health infrastructure; nutrition, infectious disease control,
[and] public health campaigns." Basic health, like basic education,
is a building block for our future.
So why is the average percentage committed
by DAC countries less than 3.5% of the total aid? What does
this say about our commitment to kids?
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