Poverty and healthcare in developing countries

Many serious issues face this country today, and two of the most important of these issues are poverty and the provision of health care and education, both in our country and worldwide. Australia is assisting in the fight against poverty in a large way, both in Australia, and on a global scale. Australia’s has three main objectives in health care and aid. The three objectives are to improve the basic health of those in need, to improve the quality of health service delivery in developing countries and to address the health effects of natural disasters and emergencies.

In 2000-2001, Australia will provide over $170 million of assistance to developing countries in many areas around the world. It is obvious that the large majority of human death in the developing world is poverty-related. Australia has been trying to improve health standards and access to basic health services for the less fortunate groups of citizens. Developing countries are generally the world's poorer countries, which are still in the process of developing their human, physical, and technological resources in order to improve the standard of living of their people.

Developed countries are the world's richer countries and are in a position to offer assistance to developing countries. Australia is obviously developed, therefore is involved in many foreign aid programs in about 130 countries. Some forms of aid that Australia provides are: Project aid for curing and vaccinating harmful diseases like malaria, improving water supplies etc. , education and training programs, technological aid in the form of equipment and expert knowledge provided for agriculture, industry and other activities as well as food aid, such as emergency food aid given if a crisis is at hand.

Often emergency relief, such as food, medicines, shelter materials and clothing are donated to people affected by natural or human disasters, or war, and often distributed by non-government aid organisations. Some examples of these organizations are CARE Australia, World Vision etc. Some organisations which help to eliminate poverty within Australia are The Salvation Army, Red Cross and Smith Family. Community projects are also carried out, such as those involving construction of local wells and schools, as well as community health care help, often run by non- government aid organisations

Recently, Australia has given to many places around the world. About 70-80% of our foreign aid goes to Papua New Guinea. Some examples of what Australians have given:

Trained 1000 teachers in Papua New Guinea and provided textbooks to 800 schools

Funded research which achieved a world break through in the prevention of dengue fever in Vietnam · Shipped 14,122 tonnes of wheat to Bangladesh for emergency flood relief

Produced a heat resistant vaccine to combat Newcastle disease in chickens - saving Malaysia, Vietnam and Africa more than $200 million

Improved the lives of 51,000 steel workers in India by reducing atmospheric pollution

Helped provide access to clean, safe water to 115,000 people in Mozambique

Shipped 33,000 tonnes of wheat to China to help sustain 1. 2 million women in agriculture

Australia believes that everyone deserves and needs an education, therefore it is compulsory to attend school. By making everyone attend school, it will hopefully reduce the poverty rate also. Education is required for development of a country and is also vital for wiping out poverty in our country. The government has many state schools that people can go to to be taught, free of charge. Education standards in Australia are among the highest in the world. The Federal Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs is responsible for a national education policy and ensures that these high standards are maintained through all states and territories. Australians believe that education is their children's right so community involvement in maintaining the standard of education is very high. Foreign education aid is also sent to many countries all over the globe.

The children in these countries are taught how to read, write, learn the english language and mathematics. Some places which Australia has sent Educational aid to are Papua New Guinea and Indonesia as well as many African Countries and South American Countries. Australia is also a great place for refugees to come to. This year about 4,500 people have made Australia their new home so far. They have many reasons for coming and one of the main reasons is war in their home country. Australia has plenty of room, but does not approve of illegal immigrants coming over by the boatload.

Queue jumpers are not accepted into the country. The recent Tampa crisis is an excellent example. The refugees should have come the legal way and and it is likely that there would have been no problems. Only Canada has a higher rate of refugee acceptances than Australia. Australia is doing its part to make the world a better place for all to live. Hopefully other countries will follow what has been done here, so eventually, poverty will be abolished, and everyone will be educated and be able to earn a decent living.