I'm Miles Tendi. I'm Zimbabwean, I'm a student here in Oxford University. Now George Bush's proposed budget for 2005/6 amounts to $2,570 billion. 22 billion is going to foreign aid. Of that 22 billion, 35% is going to Israel alone. Israel has a population of 6 million and its land size is about the same as Swaziland. Swaziland happens to one of the smallest African countries. Now on top of that 48 African countries, with the combined population of 600 million will receive only 1 billion dollars. Amazing! Even more amazing is the fact that most Americans think that the US government spends 24% of its federal budget on foreign aid when in reality it's only 0.1% of the federal budget that goes towards aid. And I think that's the crux of the matter. There is no electoral price to pay for Western leaders when they do not enhance policies that'll push development forward in the under-developed world.
Miles Tendi is a student at Oxford
University in the UK.