Not everyone's carried away by the clamour to "make poverty history".

Some people think our Government shouldn't be worrying about Africa, while pensioners in this country are struggling to live, and hospitals and schools are desperate for more funds.

It's the old "charity begins at home" argument.

It's easy to sympathise. We all know our public services need more money. A good many of us probably suspect that the money that's spent on them isn't always wisely used. What's more, we know that even in this, one of the world's richest nations, there's not a bottomless pot of money. There have to be limits on spending.

It's easy to reach the conclusion that overseas aid is one of the things that could do with trimming. What are the needs of people in far away countries of which we know nothing, against the needs of our own people?

Then, in the next breath, some of us will complain about the number of economic migrants coming into this country.

Maybe we need to stop and think about it a bit more. Why do these people come here? It can't be because of our wonderful public services, not if they're as badly off as we say they are. They come because they can't feed their families on what they earn back home, or because there are no jobs. So they take the jobs no-one else wants - fruit-picking, waiting in restaurants, cleaning hotels and offices and hospitals, even (God help them) cockle-picking. Let's leave aside the question of who would do these poorly-paid, unpopular jobs if they didn't come here - it might after all be a good thing if those poverty wages were forced to go up.

There's another saying even more forceful in my view, that: "No man is an island". We live in a global village. We might wish we could cut ourselves off from everyone beyond these shores; we might sometimes wish to cut ourselves off from everyone outside the county where we live, or even the district. But we can't do that. In these days of global news, global business, global travel, we're all interconnected, for good or ill. We can catch diseases from our fellow air passengers. The money in our pockets will be worth less - or more - because of what financiers or businessmen do on the other side of the world. Terrorists no longer confine themselves to one country. They've gone global too.

Isn't that a good point to start looking at this question of foreign aid? What feeds terrorism more than anything is discontent. If your government doesn't give you freedom, or food, or education, then you're more likely to think up violent and terrible ways of getting what you want. Either that, or you go to a country that does give you these things. Unless that country gives aid to your own country, so that your people become more prosperous, better educated and content with their lives.

Of course, the aid our Government sends from our taxes has to be properly targeted and wisely spent, otherwise it won't do a bit of good. But well spent, it will help to build a better, more peaceful world for all of us - and our children and grandchildren - to live in.

Maybe we should start thinking of the world as our home, the whole human race as our family. Then "charity begins at home" has a very different ring to it.

Published: 07/07/2005