Sarah Hemstock (University of the South Pacific) came
to visit the Cabot Institute on 20 March 2013 and presented the case study “Impacts
of international aid on climate change adaptation in Tuvalu”. Here I sum up the main points raised by Sarah
during her lecture. Please note all figures mentioned below are from Sarah's talk.
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| Tuvalu |
Climate change
Tuvalu is a microcosm for what is going on with
climate change globally. There are
issues with waste management, sea level rise, politics, energy, food production
and others.
Tuvalu grows taro, a staple carbohydrate which is
sensitive to saltwater. Due to rising
sea levels, Tuvalu is affected by high tides called king tides. These tides can contaminate agricultural land
with saltwater and thus the staple crop will not grow.
Flood defences have been built by aid agencies to
try to stop sea level rise. Unfortunately
they do not work as seawater bubbles up through the island at king tide,
flooding the airport and villages. There
is now no fresh water and villages are completely dependent on collecting
rainwater.
International
aid and the economy
Sarah began to explain why Tuvalu needs to move
away from aid to become more self empowering. She started to list the facts. Globally, $140bn has been given to
international aid between 1970 and 2010, it certainly is a lucrative business. There are four agencies who accept international
aid in the Pacific. Three of these
agencies have mandates for climate change, fisheries, GIS and mapping etc which
prevents any market driven approach to getting aid. Another problem with these agencies is their
size. For example, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has grown
from 300 employees at its inception to 3000 today. Large numbers of employees can see international
aid going towards feeding these agencies rather than having a smaller
administrative group and diverting the main bulk of funds to helping save the
islands of the Pacific. It could be argued
that these large companies provide jobs for people in the Pacific, but in
reality, these jobs are not very likely to go to people from the small island
states such as Tuvalu (for which the aid is supposed to be for), which are
isolated and poor.
Tuvalu has a weak economy. There is a lack of
exports but a lot of imports to people who are not native to the island and want
a little something from home. 83 % of
Tuvalu’s energy comes from oil and a shocking 50% of Tuvalu’s annual GDP comes
from aid. People in Tuvalu are
subsisting on less than $2 a day. However,
because Tuvalu receives a substantial amount of ‘aid’ they are recognised as a middle
income country, but this aid does not filter down to the people and in fact
Tuvalu should be considered as a low income country.
Tuvalu spends $6m on policy development, although
these policies rarely do anything and could be considered a waste of money
which could be better used in the community.
The amount of diesel used for electricity consumption has increased. However, petrol usage has decreased, mainly
due to people going back to using traditional canoes as they are cheaper to run.
A desperate
situation – a sinking community
Between 2004 and 2007, fossil fuel use increased by
21%. Sarah felt that this was because funders
ignore policy. For example, a Japanese
company gave Tuvalu three diesel energy generators. Tuvalu asked for generators that could run on
coconut oil in line with environmental policy but due to cost, the donators could
not provide these. Tuvalu couldn't
afford to run the diesel generators so Japan donates $2m of oil every year to
run them making Tuvalu totally dependent on donations for its energy supply.
There is no market, no money and no tourist
industry in Tuvalu so there is no way of generating money. It is an isolated island and boats to Fiji run
every 5-6 weeks. When weather is bad,
food, oil and supplies are not delivered.
Sarah explained how there is no joined up thinking
with international aid and no long term plans after the aid has
disappeared. An example of this is where
water tanks were given to each home in Tuvalu and they were also made in
Tuvalu. The problem with the design was
that it has a sealed top which meant it could not be stacked. This meant it would have taken 25 years to
get everyone a tank, as only six tanks would fit on each ship. The good news was that they managed to get a
barge to ship them out, but it is this lack of foresight which hampers the
success of aid activities.
Sarah also mentioned how 35% of aid goes straight
back to the company who gave the money to pay for ‘technical assistance’ and
admin fees. There are other fees which
come out of international aid. In fact if aid was taken away from Tuvalu, it
wouldn't affect the people much as the aid hardly reaches them anyway.
Interestingly, the people of Tuvalu are extremely
mentally resilient to the threat of climate change. When asked if they would move off the island
if climate change flooded their islands, they were determined to stay on the
island no matter what. When the question
was framed in an economic sense, for example would they move off the island for
work, they were more open to the idea of moving off the island. This is a difficult ethical argument. What right do we have to move the islanders
to safety, to move them to a different country, culture and language when they
do not want to go?
Climate change may be physically sinking the small
low-lying islands of the Pacific, but it is the international aid agencies
which are arguably sinking them beyond recovery. A drastic change is needed in the management
and distribution of international aid in order to save these dying islands from
the rest of the world’s actions.
This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy (@Enviro_Mand), Cabot
Institute
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| Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute |