Busan aid challenge

I’m seeing a bit of a disconnect here a hlf4. A bit of talk and quite a few lapel badges about not just making aid more effective – but about the end of aid – with an unspoken assumption that people mean quite soon.

But how does this square with the fact that we are missing the MDGs in many countries?

Even after 2015 we know we will still have well over a billion people in absolute poverty? Are people advocating an end to aid before we’ve eliminated absolute poverty?

If so, exactly where are the resources to eliminate poverty going to come from? Is the private sector able to fill the gap? Are most aid recipient countries able to eliminate absolute poverty unaided?  Can civil society fill the resource gap.

The world set a date for halving the proportion of people living in poverty – 2015. But there is no date for finishing the job – or a clear plan for what this will cost. If someone knows how to fill this resource gap without aid, let’s hear the plan.

If not, let’s keep the rhetoric and badges in line with reality.