12.9.09

Os chupistas

EAST Timor aid: where did billions go?

By ANTHONY DEUTSCH
Associated Press Writer


DILI, East Timor (AP) -- A decade after tiny East Timor broke from Indonesia and prompted one of the most expensive U.N.-led nation-building projects in history, there is little to show for the billions spent.

The world has given more than $8.8 billion in assistance to East Timor since the vote for independence in 1999, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from the U.N. and 46 donor countries and agencies. That works out to $8,000 for each of East Timor's 1.1 million people, one of the highest per person rates of international aid.


But little of the money, perhaps no more than a dollar of every 10, appears to have made it into East Timor's economy. Instead, it goes toward foreign security forces, consultants and administration, among other things.

In the meantime, data from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Food Program, U.N. Development Program and others show the money has done little to help the poor. In fact, poverty has increased. Roads are in disrepair, there is little access to clean water or health services, and the capital is littered with abandoned, burned-out buildings where the homeless squat.

(...)

Timor still faces grave challenges:

- Between 2001 and 2007, the number of Timorese living in poverty jumped nearly 14 percent to about 522,000, or roughly half the population, according to the World Bank.

- Children make up half of the poor, and 60 percent of those under 5 suffer malnutrition, the World Bank and World Food Program found.

- The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation concluded in a 2007 report that very little aid was channeled into "productive activities, including private sector development."

- The unemployment rate for 15- to 29-year-olds in the capital, who make up the vast majority of the national work force, was more than 40 percent in 2007, according to the IMF and the state.

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