Some ODA is squandered by corruption. To minimise this problem, governments that donate money can continuously re-evaluate the governments and charities they give to, concentrating their funding on organisations with long track records of efficiency. For example, among the top five recipients of money from the government’s Disaster Relief Fund have been World Vision Hong Kong, The Salvation Army, Hong Kong Red Cross, Oxfam Hong Kong and Amity Foundation Hong Kong.

The population explosion of the mid-twentieth century, when women had an average of about 5 children, is ending. The average number of children per woman is now about 2.3, and still falling, with that number now below 2.5 in many populous developing countries, including Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Algeria, China, and Mexico. If each woman has an average of about two children, the population will be stable, and if the current trend of declining birth rates continues, the global population will gradually stabilize later this century.

We could expand the existing Disaster Relief Fund by allowing aid for longer-term recovery rather than only for short-term emergency assistance, or by raising the administrative cost limit from 5% to 10%. We could also contribute to health and anti-poverty programs by highly effective organizations, either based in Hong Kong or abroad, such as The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Against Malaria Foundation, Iodine Global Network, or One Acre Fund.