Article in the Guardian: Ignore the heart-wrenching pictures and focus on the benefits of aid
Posted by Bjørn Lomborg. Monday 4 June 2012 09.00 BST
Targeted financial assistance offers a middle path between the arguments for and against higher development spending. Despite tough recession budgets, the UK has decided to let development spending increase. The international development secretary Andrew Mitchell described spending on aid as "not only from the British people but for the British people", contributing to "a strong, more prosperous and safer world". USAid is reducing or cutting programmes because of budget shortfalls. Australia's Labour government is delaying its promise to double foreign aid. Anti-poverty campaigners argue that the world's most vulnerable people should not bear the cost of rich-world profligacy. The Rev Tim Costello from Australia's Make Poverty History warns that his country's A$2.9bn (£1.8bn) in delayed aid could cost 200,000 lives. (...)
