From Deputy Jacqui Huet, chairman, Jersey Overseas Aid Commission.
I WRITE with reference to a letter published on 13 August regarding Overseas Aid. I should like to make it clear that the Overseas Aid Commission in 2007 gave £6,331,000, not £24 million, as implied by your correspondent.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, if achieved by 2015, will lift 500 million people out of poverty, 300 million more people will be adequately fed and 30 million young children’s lives will have been saved. In order to achieve these goals, the UN and EU recognised that donor govenments would need to give 0.7% of GNI.

The point that the commission’s annual report makes is that 0.7% of Jersey’s GNI would equate to about £24 million. The commission has clearly stated on numerous occasions that it fully supports the Millennium Development Goals.

However, increasing our giving to 0.7% of GNI is something which remains an aspiration for the short to medium term. The commission considers that it is vitally important to have the general public’s ‘buy-in’ to the concept, in recognition that this is, after all, taxpayers’ money.

If a particular benefit within Jersey is not functioning correctly or requires amendment, then those issues should be addressed accordingly and not used as an excuse to take monies from the overseas aid budget – monies which mostly go to feed the starving, provide clean drinking water and provide basic sanitation, among other things, to families who have to subsist on less than $1 a day.

Your correspondent also questions the effectiveness of overseas aid in general – a subject which could not be given sufficient justice in the course of a short letter. I will simply say that, as shown again in our annual report, Jersey has developed lasting links and friendships with countries like Kenya, where during the recent unrest the Jersey-funded and Jersey-built projects remained undamaged – a sign of mutual respect and benefit.

It is the commission’s view that while the issues faced by developing nations are extremely complex and cannot be addressed by one single course of action, the giving of overseas aid remains and should remain an important part of the answer.

I would also like to assure your readers that the commission takes very seriously the issues of governance and compliance and thoroughly questions and audits requests for funds for any project, whi le always applying common sense.
Contra Mundum,
Mont Cochon,
St Helier.