According to a Brisbane survey we did some time back, ‘two thirds of the Aussie public still want to increase our overseas aid to countries that are poor, have poor social services, poor health standards or who are suffering from a natural disaster or post-conflict trauma’.

I undertook the in-depth survey of 140 people in Browns Plains, Indooroopilly, Chermside, and the CBD of Brisbane with the help of staff from the Department Of Social Sciences at UQ for the Make Poverty History campaign, and the results were ‘an exciting discovery’ for advocates of more poverty-focused overseas aid.

• Not one single person said Australia shouldn’t give aid to poor countries.
• Almost 90% (89.7%) said it was ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to give aid.
• Two thirds (66.9%) of the people were actually in favour of increasing our aid.
• And almost 80% of these (76.9%) were in favour of increasing the amount of aid to meet the goal proposed by UN of 0.5% or more of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

• A majority of people (54%) would prefer aid to be distributed through Aussie NGOs.
• Where nongovernment agencies are not an option, then people would prefer that aid be distributed through governments rather than businesses.  A majority say govern-ments needn’t be democratic but should be stable (52.8%) and transparent (59.2%).

• While people recognise giving aid improves Australia’s international image (86.7%) and international relations (82.9%), the majority do not think that aid should be used as a high-profile public relations gimmick but as genuine low-profile poverty reduction.

• An overwhelming majority of people said aid should be directed towards countries that are poor (87.6%), have poor social services (91.5%) and poor health standards (89.8%) or suffering from natural disaster (94.7%) and post-conflict trauma (85.1%).

Meet the Need – Public perception, knowledge and opinion of Australia’s foreign aid to devel-oping countries – A survey commissioned by the Micah Action Group (Queensland) and the United Nations Association of Australia (Queensland Branch) – is available from the Micah Action Group (Queensland) which is a part of the Make Poverty History Coalition.