It’s the right thing to doIn the time it takes to read this sentence a child will die from a preventable disease like pneumonia or diarrhoea. We would not stand for that at home. Why should we stand for it anywhere else?

We can afford itAustralia is a lucky country. Australians have access to food, clean water, universal healthcare and education. The Australian economy has one of the lowest debt levels in the world compared to other developed countries, combined with one of the highest incomes per person in the world. We can afford to help others in our “global family” without impacting on our own development.

Aid is a hand up, not a hand outAid programs today are focused on making sure there is sustainable, lasting change. In fact, countries such as South Korea, Brazil, China and Thailand have gone from receiving aid to giving aid!

The Millennium Development Goals In 2000, Australia and other member states of the UN committed to the Millennium Declaration and a set of ambitious goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty in all its forms by 2015. Overseas aid has helped progress many of these goals, although there is still work to be done.

Does aid reach those in need?Australia’s aid program has comprehensive accountability mechanisms, is well targeted and is an effective and cooperative partner with other countries.

Aid is focused on some of the most challenging issues in the poorest countries – therefore the impact of aid can sometimes be affected by problems such as poor governance, vested interests and corruption. Despite this, in 2009-10 the estimated potential losses as a consequence of fraud equated to just 0.028 percent of Australian aid. In the same year, Centrelink had a greater rate of fraud.

Is aid effective?Yes! Australians can be proud of the good work our aid program is doing and what’s being achieved in their name. They can have confidence their aid dollars are being put to good use.

World Vision estimates that in the last year (2011/12) Australian aid alone:

• saved the lives of at least 200,000 people;• helped provide basic education for 500,000 children

and improved education quality for many more;• helped tens of thousands of farmers improve their

productivity;• trained thousands of public servants to improve their

management of budgets and the services they offer their communities;

• maintained thousands of kilometres of roads as well as other key infrastructure;

• assisted at least 10 million people affected by disasters; and

• helped 440,000 people gain access to clean water and 400,000 people to access adequate sanitation.

If Australia meets its aid commitments over the next four years Australia’s aid program will:

• prevent the deaths of around 1 million people, including 500,000 children;

• will allow another 4 million children to go to school; and

• will improve the productivity of around 1 million farmers.

Australian aid means education for more children After his mother died when he was four, Kewal of Darjeeling, India, was forced by poverty to leave school and take up work to support his family’s income.

A widower and sole guardian of Kewal and his brother, Kewal’s father explained that “the school was too far, I was down and out financially and the loss of my wife was too big a challenge for me to take care of all the need[s] of the two sons”.

Thanks to funding from Australian Government aid, World Vision established the Darjeeling Right to Childhood Project, which has now given 14-year-old Kewal the opportunity to attend school.

Through aid, Kewal was not only given an education, but provided with financial support for his school fees, which was “very helpful”, said his father.

If not for Australian aid, Kewal might still be working as a child labourer, never studying, and never getting the opportunity to help him and his family out of poverty. With the assistance of government aid, children like Kewal can not only have a healthy childhood, but develop the skills and strengths needed to realise their full potential.

Effective aid worksAustralians have a long, proud history of helping those in need; both here in our own communities and among those who are poor around the world. Our aid program is no exception.

Aid is a proven, critical part of helping to reduce poverty and build a fairer, more prosperous and secure life for all people in the small world in which we now live.

In fact, effective aid is one of the most cost-effective and productive investments that wealthy countries like Australia can make in the fight against global poverty.

It is vital that Australia continues to provide a generous, effective and accountable aid program and that our political leaders commit full bipartisan support to a sustainable scale-up of overseas aid.

To get involved in World Vision’s work to protect and grow aid, visit worldvision.com.au/action

Aid Works!A quick guide to understanding

Australia’s overseas aid contribution© 2013 World Vision Australia . World Vision Australia ABN 28 004 778 081 is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome pover ty and injustice. Ref #7080

Global poverty is one of the most pressing challenges facing our world today.

The good news is there has been significant progress in poverty reduction in the last decade. Globally, child deaths have declined from over 12 million in 1990, to less than 7 million in 2011. Overseas aid has played a large part in this success.

Governments internationally give aid – or Official Development Assistance (ODA) – in order to lift poorer nations out of poverty. AusAID is the Australian Government agency responsible for managing Australia’s overseas aid program, reporting directly to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Over the last decade, Australian aid alone has helped to save the lives of millions of people and improve the lives of millions more. It has helped reduce childhood diseases, train more health workers, educate hundreds of thousands of children, improve access to safe drinking water, build roads and infrastructure, provide agricultural training, and respond to famine and natural disasters.

Why does Australia give aid?Charity begins at home, but it doesn’t have to stop there. Australians believe in a fair go for all and these values should not end at our border. Of Australia’s 24 nearest neighbours, 22 are developing countries. Our aid is an investment in a more prosperous, secure and stable region – and world.

We promisedAustralia promised to help the poor as part of a worldwide agreement to halve global poverty by 2015. In signing up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we agreed to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from conditions of abject and dehumanising poverty”. Aid is a critical part of this commitment.

TYPES OF AIDAid is given to support both long-term development programs, as well as emergency relief work and is delivered in a number of forms, including:

BILATERAL AID: Aid that is given by one government to another. Bilateral aid is usually the largest share of the country’s aid.

MULTILATERAL AID: Aid given by a donor government through international agencies, such as the World Bank, World Health Organization or World Food Programme.

NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATION (NGO) AID: Aid that is raised by organisations like World Vision, mainly from public donations, and directed to projects run by their partners working in communities in other countries. NGOs also receive a small share of the government’s aid to carry out projects approved by the funding agreement.

Aid distributed through NGOs is very important as it often reaches the poorest and most marginalised people; however it cannot replace government assistance. Government aid is essential, as the total Australian Government aid budget is around five times larger than aid distributed through the Australian NGO sector.

AUSTRALIA’S OVERSEAS AID cONTRIBUTION

How does this compare with other countries?Australia’s contribution to aid currently places us the 13th most generous donor out of 23 OECD* donor countries.

Source: OECD 4 April 2012*Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

East Asia 32%

Pacific 25%

South and West Asia

18%

Africa and the Middle East

23%

Latin America and the caribbean

2%

Source: AusAID Budget Papers 2012-13 and including imputed multilaterals flows taken from AusAID Comprehensive Aid Policy Framework p18 – ie. this calculation covers both bilateral and multilateral aid.

Where does Australia give aid? The majority of Australia’s aid money (75%) is spent in our own neighbourhood – in Asia and the Pacific.

2012-13

What is aid spent on?

Source: AusAID Budget Papers 2012-13, aid program strategic goals.NB: The 2012 decision to include refugee support costs in Australia may change these proportions slightly.

Effective governance 18% (economic management, justice programs, participation in government)

Saving lives 18% (health, water and sanitation)

Promoting opportunities for all 21% (education, scholarships, disability services, gender programs)

Sustainable economic development 27% (agriculture, infrastructure, livelihood programs)

Humanitarian and disaster response 10%

cross-cutting aid 6% which covers more than one sector

Summary of global progress against the MDGs

Caption: Total progress of developing countries against MDG targets 2010 or later. The percentages above are the proportion of the required change under each MDG achieved to date. Data from 2011 UN MDG report or other more up-to-date UN source. Note on indicators used: Hunger – children less than 5 underweight, gender equality – share of wage employees that are women, AIDS etc – share of people requiring ARVs receiving them.

Incom

e 100%

Hunger 4

7%

Primary

school c

ompletion 4

4%

Gender equalit

y 24%

Child m

ortalit

y 62%

Mate

rnal m

ortalit

y 61%

AIDS,

TB and malaria

53%

Impro

ved w

ater s

ource 1

00%

Impro

ved sa

nitation 6

3%

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%