Talk:Central Emergency Response Fund

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Contents 1 Numberical Accuracy and Citation 2 Per capita 3 I come bearing gifts! 4 "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

[edit] Numberical Accuracy and Citation

Given that most of the data for money pledged and contributed is from the CERF site, where did the US numbers come from? Additionally, the total pledged does not equal that given on the CERF site or the sum of the numbers on the article page. 134.250.72.157 06:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Good on you, UK, for contributing almost ten times more than Australia.Daniel563 10:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Per capita

While I'm fine with adding a "per capita" column, I would also like to see a column which compares the donation against the GDP for the country (listed in each country article's infobox). Some countries were criticized for donating little compared to their large GDP. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 12:24

• Actually, that wouldn't be a good estimate, since the wealthier countries may have less GDP, but also far fewer people. How about comparing against the per capita GDP? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 12:29
  • If you want to, be my guest, I'm going to sort them by region though for now as well if that's okay Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 12:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Wouldn't it be better as an alphabetical list? --BRIAN0918 12:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
      • I felt alphabetical by region would be more fair, since otherwise scrolling down the list one sees Norway's $6.50 followed by Pakistan's less-than-a-penny, for example. Like doing it up by GDP/capita, I think it's important to offer a fair view, and simply because people looking over the list even purely for interest, are probably most interested in what their country gave in comparison to vaguely comparable countries. By the way, very minor note, but if you wanted to shrink the size of the table a bit we could consider using "South Korea" instead of "Republic of Korea" since none of the other countries are using their full formal title, and Korea's taking up the most horizontal space.Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 12:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking the new column should be % of GDP (PPP) per capita, but the numbers are too small (0.0002). I guess it will have to be in parts per million. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 12:46

• Alright. New column is done. It's basically good for comparing the relative impact a donation would have on each individual in a country. It's calculated by dividing the $ donated per capita by the GDP per capita, and multiplied by 1 million. Basically, it indicates what fraction of a person's income was donated. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 13:10
  • Don't know about you, personally I'd be fine merging "pledged" and "contributed" into a single column since I doubt countries are going to revoke their pledges. But it's not a huge deal, just if we wanted it tidier. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 13:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I would keep them separate, because until the money is actually donated, the CERF doesn't have the money :) — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 13:50
      • You're a true cynic :P Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 13:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a mess and I don't know how to fix it:

• The fifth column is calculated by dividing the fourth column by the countries' GDP per capita, and multiplying by 1 million; it is proportional to the fraction of a person's income that was donated. For example, the percentage of income donated by an individual in the UK is over 50 times larger than that by one in the US, and four times smaller than that by one in Norway.

No individuals donated. Governments donated. Also I think the math is wrong. We're dividing donation/capita by GDP/capita? Isn't there some cancelling out? Why don't we just have donations divided by GDP per capita (times 1 million)? This is completely aside from the fact that this kind of statistical analysis is out of place on Wikipedia. For example comparing America's donations to Canada's is apples and oranges without factoring in things like private donations to other aid agencies, and the fact that when it actually comes down to getting things done it is the American military (usually the navy) that is first on the ground providing actual help to those who need it while the U.N. tries to figure out how to deploy aid trucks to places without roads. Rant off. --M4-10 21:48, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• This is an article about the CERF, not whether or not the US military does good things. This has absolutely zero to do with the US military. Simple math does not fall under WP:NOR so is perfectly valid, and is actually a good thing to include. That said, I don't disagree about the UK/US/Norway example, but it's not a huge deal to me. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 22:17, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
• While it's true that no individual donated, and that the same result could be gotten by dividing donation by GDP (PPP), it is just easier for readers to understand the number if it is written in terms of % of personal income. This is standard practice for media trying to explain the impact on each individual. The US/UK/Norway comparison is just to make it clear how the numbers in the table relate in real terms, and says nothing (as it should) about what this means about the US. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 22:40
  • Hrm, what if we then just tied the example to numbers, not names? "For example, a country with a 4 would have donated..." without giving actual country names, so it doesn't seem like we're bashing those stingy bastards countries Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 23:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
    • That would just needlessly complicate the text, although you could add the number after the country name for clarification. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2006-03-10 23:20

[edit] I come bearing gifts!

this link from Luxembourg has some images of the signing. We could use one with a fairusein tag, I think. It'd give us something to offset the feeling of "gah, an all-text article with big words and fancy titles!" Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 13:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

Please check this article. Aid only harms Africa http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html