Image survey on development aid by the European Comission

As I figured I was not the only one wondering about my opions on development aid and the general perception, I found an intersting report by the European Commision (from 2004) investigating the "Attitudes towards Development Aid".

The underlying objective of this survey on attitudes to development aid is to assess awareness levels and perceptions of the Millennium Development Goals. This survey also aims at examining citizens’ views on governmental aid at the national and European levels. Finally, the objective is to assess the perceived form and consequences of development aid and identify priorities for the EU. (Quote from the report)

Right the first questions aims to find out the awareness levels of the EU's "Millennium
Development Goals". In Finland 16% and 13% in Germany have heard of this agenda.
Another questions wanted to investigate the trust of people in the success of development aid. In both Germany and Finland only 18% believe that the aim of reducing extreme hunger and poverty will be reached by 2015. There were a couple more questions asking for the trust in help with different concerns (gender equlity, education, child mortality, HIV/Aids...) and generally spoken, Germany and Finland in most questions belonged to the 5 most "pessimistic" countries!

One intersting question asked what respondends think is the most pressing issue to tackle in developing countries. The options were:

1) Reduce the possibility of armed conflict and war,
2) Cancel developing countries debts to (our country),
3) Provide training andtechnical expertise to developing countries,
4) Increase development aid to countries commited to poverty reduction to meetinternationally agreed aid targets,
5) Promote more private investments in developing countries,
6) Make sure that developing countries get fairere access to European markets for their agricultural, fishery and textile products,
7) Implement international environment agreements, and "None"

From the EU25, the highest average was given for the 1) option with 32%. As the the question of debt cancelation is rather controverse, the higest rating here came from Italy with 26%. My personal favorite is the "help for self-help" opinion of the Finnish respondents, who gave their "Most-pressing-issue"-vote for option 3)- "Provide training andtechnical expertise to developing countries" . Their 49% is by far the highest of all EU25 states. The second highest percentage for this option is 23% (from Sweden)!

When looking at total numbers (not only one option) - even 9 out of 10 Finns would like their governments to provide training as a part of the help.

Another interesting fact results from the question for the allocated budgets of donor countries (ger.:Gebeländer) for aid in developing countries. In Germany, 22% of the respondends found that the government allocates too big a share of the budget to development aid. In no other EU25 country this number was that high. But it must be noted that in many countries around 40% were unable to give an answer to that question at all. And Germany in 2003 (the year before the survey) spent 0.28% of its GNI (Gross National Income) on development assistance, which is a lot compared to other developed countries!

In my eyes, this missing trust in the success and the administration of project indicates that there is 1) demand for more and well-targeted marketing, transparency and information of the causes of organisations and projects and 2) the necessity to "come closer to the people" with the causes and urgency, especially in the "richer" countries far away from the Third World.

During my web-search I have found a very high number of job offers in development aid compared to commercial industries like tourism or marketing, where I was looking intensely! As mentioned above, most job offers were in specialist professions targeted at experienced jobseekers, but it is a flourishing "business". For me, this has shown that my time as a development aid worker is still some years away (c:

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The UN also has (mostly similar) Millenium Goals and this video on youtube shows (with a strange Vanessa Mai background music) as a presentation the different concrete goals and actions to be taken in order to achieve them. Mabye you can find your role and your opportunities to achieve those goals and more.