India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania - which together account for 90% of the population of the overseas sterling area - all had average incomes of less than £30 in 1960, This fact emerges from a study which is published in the latest issue of National Institute Economic Review. ‘The artigle giving this information takes the form of a statistical model of the export performances of sterling area countries, it was produced by A, Maizels, Nor is the situation likely to improve much, Indeed, on the basis of the figures Maizels produces, the average yearly income of these poorer members of the overseas sterling area bloc is unlikely to reach £50 by 1975 unless there is a considerable increase in aid, On the most optimistic growth assumptions, derived from studies of export demand for their products, none would reach £50 by 1975 without roughly five time the aid currently provided. The study is based on the assumed rate of growth of Western imports for the commodity exports of sterling area countries, and a more tentative projection of possible manufactured exports. Prices, except for copper and tin (which would rise relative to aluminium) and raw cocoa and natural rubber (which may be expected to fall) are assumed to retain the same relationship as in 1960, For each country an index figure for the likely growth of its exports has been calculated. This ranges from the 8% of Nigeria and the 5 to 6% of Jamaica, Ghana and Zambia, to about 2% for Ceylon and New Zealand, From the expected growth of exports, and an assumption that foreign aid will be distributed more towards the poorer countries than it has been in the past, growth rates of each area «. can be calculated, The National Institute economists made two assumptions about total foreign aid; that it would remain at the 1962 level of $6,500m., and that it would rise to $12,000m, by 1975. On the two bases, and with either pessimistic or optimistic assumptions about the growth of Western economies, four growth rates for each country are calculated, The projected rates range between about 7% for Zambia and 5% for Tanzania, Trinidad and Jamaica, to less than 4% for Ceylon, India lies between 4 and 4.7%, depending on aid, and Pakistan and Kenya are at 4%,
The implications drawn by this stud y are that if growth in the overseas sterling area is to reach more acceptable levels, in view of the 23% population increase, the foreign aid target of the United Nations of 1%, of the national income of Western countries will have to be increased or at least achieved. In 1964, only just over half this target was achieved and aid has not increased for three years, This figures show that there is absolutely no hope whatsoever, on the present basis, for the end of the terrible poverty in these countries in the forseeable future, No wonder all over the third world people are rising in revolt.