Malta’s Role In International Development Policy And Aid
 

Noel Farrugia MP,
Labour Party (Malta) Spokesperson For Development Aid

Malta as a European Union Member State, and as a new and emerging donor to international development, should play a significant role in helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through a commitment to expanding development cooperation, and increasing the volume and the quality of the aid that it provides to developing countries.

To this effect, Malta should closely follow the UNDP and the EC in their collaboration on raising awareness and building support for the achievement of the MDGs in the new Member States, including Malta.

Malta should participate in debates that form part of the efforts by the UN, the EU and other organizations to take stock of the status of achievement of the MDGs and promote the European Development Days.

It is very important to work with a view to increasing public awareness and ownership of the MDGs and development issues.

These aspects should be emphasised -

- International - commencing with an introduction to the MDGs and the progress made internationally towards achieving the MDGs by 2015. A discussion should take place about the feasibility of the MDGs and what needs to be done in view of reaching the 2015 targets.

- European – to assess the role of the EU in development. Provide information about the degree of ownership of MDGs by EU citizens and the simultaneous importance being given to awareness-raising at EU level.

- National - focusing on Malta’s development policy as well as the degree to which development education and awareness-raising in Malta is actually being promoted.

In this respect, therefore, the Maltese Government should properly develop a department on international development aid.

The poverty of less developed countries is seen as a major global challenge and it is therefore interesting to look into Malta’s role in international development. What are Malta’s development priorities? How is Malta helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals?

As a new member of the EU, Malta is required to have a formal development policy and it has also committed itself to reach a level of 0.17% ODA (Official Development Assistance)/GNI by 2010 and to increase its ODA/GNI ratio to 0.33% by 2015. Malta is also a signatory of the UN Millennium Declaration where it promised to work towards achieving the MDGs. Have we met these obligations?

Malta wrote off approximately 6.5 million Euros in debt owed by Iraq in 2004, and this money was included as part of the Maltese Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) for 2003-2005. Moreover, Malta includes the money spent on refugees in its ODA calculation, as well as including the money spent on educating foreign students on scholarships. Is this right? Civil society organisations argue that ODA should be money spent in the developing countries on real projects, and that debt cancellation, refugee assistance and scholarships are not true ODA. Other countries also carry out this practice.

Increased political will is necessary and public funds need to be structured and channelled towards the MDGs and overseas development aims. The government’s ODA is at present made up largely of debt cancellation, refugee and scholarship costs. Given its small size and its limited resources, the Maltese Government will perhaps be more effective, especially in the long run, if it were to engage increasingly in on-the-ground and focused development projects within a pre-determined niche area of developing countries.

In this regard, a Conference should be organised to discuss these issues and to elaborate on how a successful development policy for Malta can be formulated for the future. Malta should take the initiative and be creative in proposing solutions especially in light of the current international financial situation.

I have personally taken it upon myself to dedicate as much of my energy as the good Lord will give me to continually lobby for the creation of a Euro-African Mission whose primary emphasis will be on integrally generating awareness on a level playing field across all African and European Nations.

The start to this was my parliamentary initiative to promote the appointment of Parliamentary Friendship Committees, which would be appointed in each country and be able to interact together. It would be necessary that these Committees will have as their main objective the intention of developing bilateral cooperation between parliaments and also be able to lobby in favour of new projects and especially those essential for easier cost-efficient access to agricultural produce via the new technologies available. This lobbying should also be made within a framework of the independent European states’ parliaments as well as within the European Parliament in Brussels.

We have no excuse; it is our duty as world citizens to provide the needy with a better quality of life in the poorer nations of our world. Moreover, ensuring such a better quality of life to these nations will also alleviate the pressure on countries within Europe due to irregular immigration. Malta has seen a steady increase in this phenomenon since having joined the European Union. If life in the poorer nations was made better for them, they would have no reason to flee, risking life and limb, in despair and with the hope of finding a better life beyond their shores, find work and live in squalor to earn some money and be able to send it back to feed their hungry families.

We also have to consider the enormity of what is happening in the current world financial scenario and how this will affect these nations. It is common knowledge that there has been a slight fall in food prices recently, however, this is only temporary and prices will climb back and become even higher in the future and continue to rise steadily as recovery of the global economy starts to be felt. Effectively, this will have a devastating effect on all import-dependent countries, including Malta.

This is why we cannot allow the cries from our neighbours across the sea to fall on deaf ears. Last year almost one billion people went hungry and this figure is set to continue rising as the financial crisis sets in further and further, resulting in raising unemployment and, therefore, leading to less available income. This is a fact of life. We are seeing this in the developed world, can you even imagine the effect this will have on the destitute, not just in the developed world but, also, in the undeveloped countries? No, I don’t think you can imagine this.

Last year, there were riots in Haiti, Bangladesh, Egypt, Cameroon, amongst other nations, when prices of rice and wheat reached record levels, and over thirty sub- Saharan countries in Africa appealed for food aid. Now, although prices have reduced slightly, they are still at levels which low-income families all over the world cannot afford. Suffice to note the increase that many ‘soup kitchens’, even within the United States of America, have seen in the number of persons who visit them for free daily meals.

Now when one considers that, since last December, the international price of Wheat has risen by over 15% and that of Corn even further to over 17%, one can only deduce with a great deal of certainty that the number of hungry mouths to feed will continue to grow, the undernourished increase, and the result is chaos of an unprecedented level. The undertrodden will bear the brunt and either revolt or flee in search of a better dream.

When will we all wake up to the fact that this is reality? An administration with clout is necessary so that this does not happen and the only real way forward is to immediately address the dire necessity to invest in poor countries by preparing them to handle the effects of this crisis and develop their agricultural systems with new technologies enabling them to stave off the effects of global warming. This is where International Development Aid should be concentrated and not put forward the claim that such aid was spent on educating foreign students! That is what I call the commercial equivalent of a tax write-off. It is shameful that governments claiming social consciousness resort to balancing books without the ability to think laterally and evaluate the greater benefits that would be achieved if the available funds were, in effect, really invested appropriately rather than just written off.