GEOFFREY Richards (Wiltshire Times, May 26) says this country is too poor to be able to maintain our 0.7 per cent of GNP contribution to Foreign Aid. He doesn’t want even a tiny amount of the tax he pays to go towards reducing global inequality and enabling people hundreds of times poorer than he is to achieve a better life.
Aid enables people to recover from natural disasters like the earthquake in Nepal and work their way out of levels of poverty most of us can’t even imagine. 
This benefits us as well as them because it reduces the numbers of desperate people trying to enter rich countries illegally, and at the national level it gives us respect and influence among other rich countries. Greater global equality isn’t only an ideal, it is the only way we can be more secure and enjoy the products and cultural contributions of people all over the world rather than fearing them as a threat.
Of course aid isn’t the only way because Fairtrade is also giving millions of people a better life. I have visited Fairtrade farmers in several African countries and seen for myself the huge difference it makes when we pay a price that gives them enough to improve their farming methods, send their children to school and afford health care. 
Fairtrade farmers aren’t drowning in the Mediterranean or camping at Calais because they see no future for themselves in their own countries.
When we all support our aid and buy Fairtrade we actually change the world.
Vivienne Kynaston
Elms Cross Drive
Bradford on Avon