Over 80% of Australians believe that conditions for children in developing countries have worsened or remained unchanged over the last ten years, with African children believed to be suffering the greatest levels of hardship and poverty.

These findings come from a new report released by ChildFund Australia: Perceptions of children's needs and aid effectiveness in developing countries, 2007. The research examined the views of over 1,000 Australians about international aid issues.

ChildFund CEO Nigel Spence says: "It is very worrying that, despite a decade of new global initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals, Make Poverty History and pledges at the G8 summit to increase aid budgets, less than 20% of people believe that conditions have improved for children in developing countries."

"Extreme poverty is viewed by Australians as being virtually synonymous with Africa. While there is a strong basis for this perception, the severe difficulties facing the children of our closest neighbours, such as Papua New Guinea and East Timor appear not to be recognised."

When asked about issues affecting children in the developing world, 65% of respondents think that the most pressing concern is the lack of food and/or clean water, followed by education (56%), access to healthcare/medical supplies (24%) and health/spread of disease (24%).

Despite being pessimistic about the situation for children in developing countries the survey finds that most Australians believe that international aid is generally effective, particularly in the areas of water and sanitation, health, nutrition and education.

Australians strongly believe that government corruption and/or poor infrastructure are the main obstacles to effective aid delivery. "A key message from the research is that Australians think children in developing countries would be much better of if it weren't for corrupt governance, the inadequacy of the aid budget and an insufficient proportion of aid agency funds directly reaching the communities", stated Mr Spence. Ethiopia, Sudan and India are the top three countries most mentioned as those to which respondents would definitely make a donation, while Indonesia, India and China are the top three countries most often mentioned as the countries to which respondents would definitely not make a donation.

"No countries from Latin America appear in the top ten list of countries where people will donate, and only one of the world's 20 poorest countries - Ethiopia - is listed. It appears that only a small group of countries feature in Australians' thinking about developing countries, with many poor countries being largely unnoticed," says Nigel.

The research also found that Australians rank poverty and hardship in developing countries as the most important global issue today ahead of climate change, the environment, war and armed conflict.