Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House.

(1)

notes that:

(a)

microcredit is a particularly effective and sustainable means of eradicating poverty;

(b)

microcredit borrowers, particularly women, generate income that allows them to feed, clothe, educate and care for the health of their children;

(c)

to date 66.6 million people in the world have been reached with microcredit services;

(d)

Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) seeks to eradicate poverty, while its 2015 target is to reduce by half the number of people living on less than $1 per day;

(e)

if the new Microcredit Summit goal of having 175 million of the world’s poorest families receiving microcredit were reached by 2015, then nearly half the MDG target would be met;

(f)

Australia spent $14.5 million on microcredit in the 2005-06 Aid Budget, which is 0.6%of the Aid Budget; and

(g)

the USA, which funded microcredit longer than most donor countries, has established an international benchmark for microcredit spending, being 1.25% of the aid budget;

(2)

urges the Australian Government to agree to support the new Microcredit Summit goal of having 175 million of the world’s poorest people receiving microcredit by 2015 as a means of achieving the MDG; and

(3)

urges the Australian Government to increase the proportion of money it allocates to microcredit to 1.25% of the aid budget. (Notice given 15 June 2006.)

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