Are world leaders playing politics with aid funds?
If the scale of destruction and the depths of tragedy generated by the Asian tsunami disaster have been staggering, then so has the response from the British public. Donating at the rate of a million pounds an hour following the launch of the joint agency appeal, this response is, in the words of an appeal spokesman, ‘remarkable and humbling’. Yesterday that Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal, of which Christian Aid is a member, topped £50 million and is set to break all records. It also seems to have had a salutary effect on the British government, which last week more than trebled the amount it was pledging to the relief effort as the scale of public concern became clear. So it is not surprising that people now want to know where and how all this money is being used. More precisely, they want to know why, after this magnitude of cash has been given, millions of people still remain in a parlous state – without the very basics. Children dying for the want of simple drugs. A lac
