Providing state aid

A wide gap has opened between the most generous aid givers and the rest of the industrialized nations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark all gave more than 1% of Gross National Product (GNP) in aid during 1992. Apart from the Netherlands, no other OECD country reached even the 0.7% aid target agreed in the 1960s. The average from the industrialized nations was just 0.34%. In 1992, Norwegians gave the most aid, 1.11% of GNP or US$288 per person. This is approximately twice as much per person as the French, Germans or Canadians, three times as much as the Japanese, four times as much as the Italians, five times as much as the British, and six times as much as the USA. If all countries were to reach the target aid figure of 0.7% of GNP, an additional $67,000 million a year would be made available, enough to eradicate the worst aspects of world poverty within a decade. Recent opinion polls in 11 European countries show that a significant majority of voters are in favour of increasing aid levels.