It's a dry, hot, dusty day in Chavakachcheri (Northern Sri Lanka) when I am taken to meet some of the families that have returned to their home communities after 30 years of civil war. Many of the children I meet have lost their Dad in the war, and the lucky ones - their Dads are amputees, or suffering from mental distress. Female headed households, (that's the official term) are the norm here.
But the community suffers, not just a human cost, but also from a lack of water, sanitation, food and economic opportunities to change their reality. Among the many challenges facing the area, much of the infrastructure in the Northern Province was destroyed and water sources were neglected.
In Chavakachcheri the people bought me bottled water - but this wasn't the $1 bottle you buy and throw, this was a bottle of the water they use for cooking, drinking, cleaning, bathing and gardening. (The picture to the right.)
Over the last year I have been working with a team in Sri Lanka to design a project that will "enhance the health and quality of life of the poor and vulnerable by improving sustainable access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene."
Our plan will transform the lives of 3,800 households, (15,960 people) and 4,500 students (in 15 schools) in 10 villages (with a bias towards female headed households and households with a disabled person). Our plans include:
- Constructing 10 water supply units which will improve equitable access to households and schools.
- Develop (with the government and community) new water supply options including: rainwater harvesting, household level solar treatment facilities and community tanks piping water to universally accessible stand points
- Sanitation and hygiene behaviour change will occur as a result of the provision of affordable latrines and solid waste disposal management which will result in the communities becoming open defecation free (ODF).
On Friday, the Liberal Government's decision to axe AusAID came into effect and an email arrived telling us that the funding (and the two other similar projects planned for PNG and Zimbabwe) has been withdrawn.
Tony Abbot's promise to balance the budget includes a $4.5 billion cut in the projected foreign aid budget over four years to help fund ''essential infrastructure'' in Australia. ''We can't continue to fund a massive increase in foreign aid at the expense of investment in the Australian economy,'' Hockey declared. Abbott added insult to that injury: ''We will build the roads of the 21st century rather than shovel money abroad.''
(It's much bigger than this; I am reducing the issue greatly, but to try and paint a realistic picture). Despite last year telling us that we had $2.5 million and the mandate to proceed - 12 months of discussions and planning with government and community, making promises on behalf of the Australian people, and with the approval of the Australian Government - on Friday night I had to ask the Sri Lankan team to begin to break the news that it is not going to happen. We do not have the promised money to help them get safe, clean water, or to assist them to build improved sanitation facilities. We do not have the people to help them, because we do not have the money.
Why? Because the Australian government, on my behalf, told them that they are not a good investment. Julie Bishop (Foreign Affairs Minister) says 'that the new order was about making aid a tool of diplomacy and trade promotion'. So, investing in the lives of 4,500 students who have no safe drinking water at school has no economic advantage for Australia. It is more important that I have a nice road with a neon super-sculpture to brighten up my trip than 15,960 people in post-war communities have clean, safe water. (The number is actually much bigger than that because the whole program is actually 20 NGOs, in 12 countries.)
Mark Baker, (Editor, The Age: The shame that is Abbott's foreign aid policy) says: "The cuts... will also reinforce growing perceptions throughout the Asia-Pacific region and beyond that Australia is a spoilt and selfish country that's indifferent to the moral obligations of the richest nations to the poorest." (The Great Southland? Not so much!)
What Abbot's us-first approach to aid fails to acknowledge is that investing in the development of Northern Sri Lanka could actually have a dramatic impact on one of his other election promises - Stop the Boats. The best way to stop Sri Lankan's getting on boats and causing us discomfort on our boarders is to help them get water, sanitation, safety, jobs, hope and the same rights you and I demand at home - I suspect that it would be a lot cheaper too.
