A decade after Timor Leste won its independence from Indonesia, a new report says less than 10 per cent of the estimated $8.8 billion spent on international aid and assistance for the fledgling nation has reached the Timorese economy.

The report by the Timor Leste-based La’o Hamutuk research institute says most of the money has been spent on security, UN salaries and fees to international consultants.

It says that despite international spending equivalent to about $8,000 dollars for each of Timor Leste’s 1.1 million people, nearly half of the population still live below the poverty line.

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A group monitoring the foreign aid given to East Timor since it claimed independence 10 years ago says little has been achieved with the aid.

The group claims most of the estimated $10 billion has been spent on international salaries, administration, and imports.

Australia is East Timor’s largest donor and gives the country $100 million each year in aid, and the Federal Government is adamant it is not being wasted.

East Timor’s vice prime minister, Mario Carrascalao, says the country is making progress and in spite of some of the hiccups, the international community has helped create peace in his country.

“They succeeded at least to get Timor Leste to a position that we can say we’re proud that this is one of the country’s with the lowest per cepita crime in the world now,” he said.

But he says if $10 billion has been spent in East Timor there should be more signs of prosperity.

“If you look to the roads, the roads are the same that have been left by Indonesia,” he said.

“But I don’t see that beside peace and security that we have in East Timor … even the administration, the UN did not produce the people with enough skills that we need to run independence.”

Lut Hamutuk, an organisation that monitors aid in East Timor, estimates only 10 per cent of foreign aid ends up in East Timor’s economy.

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta says he too is concerned that too much aid money is not going to the East Timorese.

“A lot of aid money came into East Timor, really,” he said.

“You ask Australia, you ask the Japanese whether – what percentage of this money they claim to allocate to Timor every year, they spent in East Timor, or on dubious studies, evaluations, reports, more studies, more evaluations, more reports, telling us the obvious.

“A recent report from the World Bank assessing poverty in East Timor from 2001 to 2006-2007 concluded that the poverty increased. Well, but the World Bank itself should asked what have we done here in this country?”

During the recent anniversary celebrations, the president thanked Australia for its contributions to East Timor.

Australia’s overseas aid agency AusAid says East Timor is now peaceful and that is a key sign Australia’s aid has had a positive impact.

It also says Australia is helping to build the foundations for a strong and stable economy in East Timor and for a vibrant democracy.

A spokesman for the United Nations mission in East Timor says they are a peacekeeping mission that is accountable to the General Assembly for its budgets.

It says there have been very real results because the situation in East Timor is peaceful and calm.

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The five-year long fighting between government forces and Houthi fighters in the north of Yemen has cast a shadow on the future of this Arab country.

Houthi fighters, who are Zaidi Shia Muslims, are seeking independence from a government which they say is corrupt and too close to Saudi Arabia.

The latest round of fighting started in Yemen’s north last month and has continued primarily in Saada province.

It is estimated that more than 100,000 people have been displaced in the fighting in Saada and UN aid agencies are warning that Yemen is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

Just four hours after a truce was declared on Saturday, fighting had resumed with both sides claiming the other had broken the ceasefire.

Is Yemen heading for another civil war? And how are regional powers influencing events in a country considered a breeding ground for extremist groups?

Inside Story presenter Sohail Rahman is joined by Hakim Almasmari, the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Post, Tahar Qassim, the chairman of the Liverpool Arabic Centre, and Steven Park, the founder of Sema Group, a global security company.

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Nearly one year after a school shooting in Finland in which ten people died, the country’s parliament is getting ready to debate tighter gun laws.

An estimated 500,000 people hold gun licenses in the country, but after a series of shootings the government wants more scrutiny of people applying for weapons permits.

Alan Fisher reports from Jokela, the scene of another school shooting in 2007.

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Finland’s parliament has been considering whether to pass tough gun laws after a deadly school shooting two years ago brought pressure on the government to impose better regulation.

But in a country with a long history of gun ownership, the proposals are being hotly contested.

Guns are considered to be part of Finnish culture and for years the Finns have been protective of their gun laws.

In a country which has proportionately the third highest gun ownership in the world (after the US and Somalia) there has been resistance to outside interference, including a rejection of calls to raise the minimum age for gun ownership from 15.

But one event in 2007 became a tipping point. Just before midday on November 7, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, an 18-year-old student, walked into his former school in the Tuusula municipality armed with a legally-owned semi-automatic pistol and began firing.

Before he was done, eight students and teachers lay dead. He then turned the gun on himself and died later that night in hospital.

Finland knew then it had do something about gun ownership.

‘Lost everything’

When Pirjo Olli heard the news about the Jokela high school massacre, a shiver ran through her body, and she could not not help the tears flowing.

Fifteen years ago, her husband Matti was shot dead by an off-duty soldier in a case which is well known in Finland.

“It always brings me back to what happened to me … I also think about how many people are touched by these sort of things.”

Struggling for breath, trying to regain her composure she adds: “The amount of people who have to suffer – it’s just so enormous. I know I felt I had lost everything”.

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Gross Domestic Product, which measures the value of goods and services produced or provided in any given year, is the best-recognised measure of economic performance in the world. For many, a rise in economic growth – as measured by GDP is shorthand for a rise in living standards and an increase in well-being. However, GDP has severe limitations as a human development indicator, as even one of the founders of the GDP concept Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Kuznets realised. The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income, he wrote in a 1934 report to the US congress. If the GDP is up, why is America down? Distinctions must be kept in mid between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns and between the short and the long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what? GDP measures all economic activity fighting crime, natural disasters and environmental depletion – whether or not it contributes to an individuals well being or a community’s progress. This can produce some perverse results.

Learn more at Beyond GDP.

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The European Commission published today a Communication on how to measure progress in a changing world. It proposes to go beyond the best known measure of economic activity, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and to develop more inclusive indicators that provide a more reliable knowledge base for better public debate and policy-making.

Economic indicators such as GDP were never designed to be comprehensive measures of well-being. Complementary indicators are needed that are as clear and appealing as GDP but more inclusive of other dimensions of progress – in particular environmental and social aspects. There is a lack of adequate indicators to address global challenges such as climate change, poverty, resource depletion and health.
After decades of measuring performance in terms of economic indicators like gross domestic product (GDP), the commission is planning a new approach to the way the EU evaluates economic progress. A concept that grew out of the Great Depression, GDP refers to the value of all goods and services produced or provided by a country in any given year. Although a good measure of production, it has serious shortcomings as a gauge of overall welfare.

The problem is that GDP encompasses all economic activities, even those that damage the environment and harm people. Wars and natural disasters, for example, end up being positive for the economy because of the growth spawned by reconstruction efforts.

Nor does GDP give any indication of how a nation’s wealth is distributed. In many countries with a relatively high national product, the gap between rich and poor are disturbingly wide.

People are increasingly realizing that quality of growth is as important as quantity. According to a recent survey, more than two thirds of Europeans believe governments should give more weight to social and environmental aspects of well-being. The question is how to measure these.

Stavros Dimas, Commissioner in charge of Environment, explained in a press conference that GDP was not intended to be a measure of well-being and does not pick-up on issue that are vitally important to the quality of life such as a clean environment, social cohesion or even how happy people are.

The Communication outlines five actions and among them it proposes a pilot of an environmental index that will assess progress in the main fields of environmental policy and protection. The index will cover areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, loss of natural landscapes, air pollution, water use and waste generation.

Learn more at Beyond GDP.

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