After the disastrous events in Indonesia, South Asia, and Somalia, families are picking up of what’s left of their homes and looking for the missing, many of whom are now presumed dead. The tsunamis that struck after the 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Sumatra have claimed 22,000 dead, leaving local livelihoods vulnerable to diseases and reduce food supply. Days after the disaster, the United States and various nations in Western Europe are doing all they can to meet the needs of the victims and support their rehabilitation.

However, in light of the disaster, some feel the need to politicize the event and use it as a podium to chastise Western Nations, particularly the US, for its “stinginess.” According to CNN, Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, blasted Western nations for the lack of foreign aid.

In a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York, Egeland called for a major international response — and went so far as to call the U.S. government and others “stingy” on foreign aid in general.

“If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really,” he said. “I don’t think that is very generous.”

Is Jan Egelhand placing the blame squarely on the United States for the ensuing humanitarian crisis? Singling out the United States for the “lack of foreign aid” has been a favorite argument among UN bureaucrats. Jan Egelhand ignores that fact that those numbers do not include private donations, especially from religious organizations, which make up a large percentage of America’s total foreign aid. In Foreign Affairs, Carol C. Adelman shows that in 2000, total private donations totaled 35.1 billion dollars, which made up 61% of America’s foreign aid. Is that stingy? If you work for the UN, yes it is!

The 0.7% rule, which mandates each industrialized country allocate 0.7% of its GDP for foreign aid, is arbitrary and assumes that the states, not private organizations, have the sole duty to contribute foreign aid. Measuring the generosity of countries based on the percentage of state foreign aid in terms of GDP should not be scale that measures which countries are generous. The state and private organizations should make a concerted effort to aid other countries in disaster such as those that happened last weekend.

Arguments as to which country is the most generous or who has the responsibility of allocating aid is lost when one sees the extent of the damage. May God give those families and friends who lost their loved ones the strength to recover, and may those who lost their lives find peace in eternity.