With more evidence than in any previous report, Oxfam shows how the response of rich countries to disaster is not determined by need and suffering, but by politics, geography and media coverage. The aid lottery is one of the most brutal inequalities in the world, said the report s author, Oxfam policy adviser Nicola Reindorp. The West is bound by international laws which say that people in need wherever they are have equal status and rights to help. But in practice there is nothing equal about it. An accident of geography or dramatic pictures can decide whether you live or die.
Humanitarian aid is a lottery.
Western governments response to United Nations Consolidated Appeals show the skewed contrasts of humanitarian aid. Last year, more than half the EU s humanitarian aid money went to Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. This was four times the amount of humanitarian aid that the EU spent in Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean combined. Oxfam calls on rich countries to give more humanitarian aid, but not at the expense of long term development aid. However governments of countries in crisis bear the primary responsibility for helping their people.