Underdog contributions to humanitarian aid

One of the courses I really enjoyed last semester is International Development Aid. 'How on Earth can you make a course out of that' you may ask? Well, admittedly it diverges from the more common formulas. In our IDA-lessons we were stormed at with figure and fact; a veritable crossfire of statistics. The goal is not to cultivate a fetish for numbers, but to visualize some underlying trends in development aid. Various mechanisms in financing and applying aid can remain hidden by manipulating the way in which various concepts are defined.

The design of our lessons was quite successful. Even to such an extent that I wish to try the formula in this post. We will be fighting the idea that humanitarian aid is a matter of the North paying to the South. Following is an armory of dates, amounts, and percentages that are to drive the enemy claim toward surrender. Enjoy!

• In 2009, the efforts of the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - totaled to an amount of 3,7 billion US dollar. That same year the joint humanitarian aid expenses of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait was 4,2 billion. It should be added that these are conservative estimates as certain aid flows are under-measured.
• In 2010, the top two contributors to the Emergency Relief Fund for the Haiti earthquake were Saudi Arabia and Brazil. They respectively donated 50 and 8 million US dollar. Amongst the top ten contributers were a lot of African nations too: Nigeria gave 2,5 million while Equatorial Guinea made an effort of 2 million. Gabon, Tunisia and the Congo DR each added 1 million US dollar.

Ever heard that 'we can not help all of them'? Believe me, we aren't. Most refugees are located in the Third World!

• Really unexpected humanitarian aid numbers for the year 2008 are: Thailand (27,4 million), Kazakhstan (9,7 million) and Iraq (8 million). A similar exercise for 2010 brings about Turkey (60,9 million), again Thailand (11,7 million) and Mexico (10,7 million).
• Bangladesh received 70% of its 2007 humanitarian aid from non-traditional donors. In 2008 Pakistan can say the same for 85% of the aid and the Maldives even got as much as 90% of their humanitarian aid of 2009 from non-Western countries.

All numbers were lifted from reports by the independent research institute Global Humanitarian Assistance. Hopefully this post was useful to you in some way. As with a lot of figures these numbers are only a first step towards a more thorough understanding. If you are interested in North-South development cooperation, check out my earlier post on how aid really functions.