THE Isle of Man has provided direct financial support more than 4.3 million people around the world since 2008, according to figures released yesterday by the government.

The Island’s Overseas Aid Committee released the statistics in response to a question in the House of Keys from Onchan LVP MHK Zac Hall.

The figures show that the Isle of Man has contributed many millions of pounds in donations to a wide variety of projects around the world, together with emergency donations to countries hit by famine, floods, earthquakes and war.

The majority of donations have been allocated across Africa and Asia, with sometimes very significant amounts running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

However, the committee accepts that the figures are significantly behind most European countries in terms of the amount of aid it gives as a percentage of Gross National Product (GNP).

The Isle of Man also accepts that currently it gives “substantially less” in overseas aid than the amount of money donated in the Channel Islands by Guernsey and Jersey, as a percentage of GNP.

Amongst the aid organisations supported in recent years by the Isle of Man and its people is WaterAid (water, sanitation etc in Sierra Leone), Send a Cow (Rwanda genocide survivors), World Vision (Mozambique flood response), Red International (Afghan winter relief project), PumpAid (clean water in Liberia), Plan (emergency flooding in Senegal), Merlin (mobile clinics in Burma) and MAG (explosive disposal in Cambodia).

Substantial donations have also been made to more familiar aid organisations such as Unicef, Save the Children, Oxfam, British Red Cross, Christian Aid and the Disasters Emergency Committee.

During the current year, donations have been made to a number of countries, most notably Nepal, Zimbabwe, Kenya and East Africa.

The committee stresses that the Isle of Man does not get involved in ‘Foreign Aid’ - which is completely different to overseas aid in that it constitutes “economic or military assistance”.