While he was leader of the opposition David Cameron promised that once in power a Conservative government would introduce a law pledging that 0.7% of all government spending would go each year to foreign aid. He also promised a referendum on membership of the EU. That one slipped quickly down the memory hole once he entered number 10 – but the foreign aid commitment remained solid. It hasn’t yet been passed into law but, alongside the NHS, the Department for International Development’s budget remained ring fenced while everything else was being sliced.
It really sums up the essence of Cameron and his friends in the metropolitan cabal who took over the party once he was elected. At heart, though they profess Tory “values”, they yearn for the approval of the UK’s cultural elite whose house magazine is The Guardian and whose chuch is the BBC.
Foreign aid paid for out of our taxes has never been particularly popular with most people. Private donations, however, have always been a different matter. Over the last few decades foreign aid charities like Oxfam & Save The Children have benefited enormously from the generosity of private individuals. As a result such institutions have experienced massive growth until we are now faced with a foreign aid industry handling billions of pounds and employing tens of thousands of people on an increasingly professional basis – and like any other industry they have an interest in constant expansion.
That was fine until, like everyone else, the charity industry was hit by the recession. Oxfam and company were now having to compete in a shrinking market. Thousands of managers and executives who were earning +50k salaries became very nervous and saw the Cameron commitment as their lifeline. Which is why they will be spinning furiously in the face of current concerns about the amount of taxpayers money being pumped into foreign aid and, much closer to the nerve, serious questioning of the raison d’etre for foreign aid in the first place.
After years of being Teflon the whole purpose of foreign aid is coming under the microscope – the six figure salaries, the grandiose offices, the bonuses and perks and, above all, the industry’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Far from helping the poorest, he said, ‘aid corrodes civil society and encourages corruption and conflict’ in poor countries. He added: ‘While we fund schools and hospitals, rulers can steal from state coffers or spend huge sums on arms, then win elections using bribery, coercion or violence.’
Developing countries wanted ‘tourism and trade, not dollops of aid’, he said, urging Miss Greening to scrap the ‘neo-colonial’ approach to the world.
He said: ‘You cannot build democracy on other people’s money … By doling out vast sums to often dubious foreign regimes, we ensure they have less need to respond to their citizens’ needs.
And with all that money being hosed into the trough there are plenty of snouts getting stuck in and greedy for more
With the huge aid monies swirling around, all those involved — politicians, consultants, charities, think-tanks, even many journalists — have a shared interest in hiding uncomfortable facts. As budgets have soared in recent years, the stakes have become higher. And the relationships between those feeding off the boom is looking increasingly tawdry.
This weekend it emerged that ‘poverty barons’ are making millions in consultancy fees, with half a billion pounds paid to consultants. Instead of alleviating poverty in the most hard-pressed corners of the world, money from British taxpayers is ending up in the pockets of fat cats paying themselves six-figure salaries and seven-figure bonuses
We know that the new minister, Justine Greening, saw her move from Transport to DfID as a demotion. We also know she is able and combative (she trod on quite a few bureaucratic toes at Transport) and not over keen on dishing out freebies to foreigners. Let us hope that she casts her accountant’s eye line by line over those DfID books – and spearheads a reassessment of the whole nature of DfID.
