Sir, – Further to recent correspondence (October 14th) on the question of aid or trade, there is no argument but that trade is essential to improve the lives of the world's poorest citizens. Almost all evidence suggests smart aid and fairer trade policies will help improve quality of life for the world's most disadvantaged.
But in the short term, improved trading policies or even large yearly economic growth will not immediately help the most vulnerable. Trade will not educate a Syrian child spending her third year in a Lebanese refugee camp. Nor will it stop the chain of transmission of HIV from a HIV-positive pregnant woman to her baby in Malawi. Aid, or specifically emergency education and the provision of antiretroviral drugs, will. Fairer trade policies are essential but they won’t improve and save lives immediately as aid will. This combination of smart aid and more equitable trade policies will make the world safer, healthier and more prosperous for us all. – Yours, etc,
ROSS McCARTHY,
Freetown,
Sierra Leone.
Sir, – The old mantra of “trade not aid” may hold true for Owen Brooks (October 14th), but for most, these are not strictly separate entities. If Mr Brooks were to investigate where overseas aid is spent, he would see that a sizeable portion of Ireland’s overseas aid is spent on small-scale economic projects, helped by Irish NGOs with funding from the Irish government. He is right that countries in the global south will only be able to work themselves out of economic hardship, which is the ultimate goal of projects like these, but for this to be possible, access to funding, credit or microfinance is required. Mr Brooks may argue that trade can solve this in one fell swoop, but it is clear that this does nothing but benefit the developed countries with whom they trade at an exponentially greater rate, and thus increase the relative wealth gap between richer and poorer countries. – Yours, etc,
NIALL MURPHY,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.