26 Sep 2012

UK on target to meet overseas aid pledge

If increasing spending on overseas aid were a vote winner, David Cameron would surely have something to shout about. But is public opinion on his side?

When the coalition government was formed in 2010, Mr Cameron pledged to spend 0.7 per cent of Britain’s national wealth on overseas aid by 2013 – two years before the target date set by the G8 Gleneagles summit, which the previous government signed up to.

The prime minister has also gone further by planning to enshrine in law this commitment. As things stand, 0.56 per cent is being spent and the 0.7 per cent target looks achievable.

The prime minister, pictured above with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, reaffirmed the government’s intentions at the United Nations on Tuesday – no doubt irritating some Conservative MPs who feel that taxpayers’ money is better spent at home in the midst of recession.

Before his keynote address to the UN General Assembly, Mr Cameron said: “We must send a clear message to everyone who signed up to millennium development goals that now is the time to step up and honour those promises.

“I know there are some who say we can’t afford to do that right now. They believe we have to focus on ourselves – and if that means breaking promises, then they’re sorry, but it just has to be done.

“Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. When we make a promise to the poorest people in the world we should keep it, not turn our backs on people who are trusting us to help them.”

‘Head held high’

These words, which could have been uttered by Tony Blair, earned plaudits from charities like Oxfam, whose chief executive Barbara Stocking said: “David Cameron’s commitment to the poorest people on the planet is an example to other leaders and allows Britain to hold her head high on the world stage.”

If Britain can feel good about the £11.5bn a year (£8.5bn in 2011-12), it will soon be spending on relieving poverty and improving healthcare and education in poorer countries, many other nations cannot.

Britain will be first in the G7 group of wealthy countries to reach this target. The US (0.2 per cent), Japan (0.18 per cent) and Germany (0.4 per cent) are way behind.

But before smugness sets in, it is worth noting that Sweden and Norway are contributing almost twice as much as a proportion of their national wealth.

Millennium goals

The millennium development goals Mr Cameron mentioned in his speech include commitments to eliminate absolute poverty, provide universal primary education and fight Aids, malaria and other diseases in developing countries.

The problem, as the prime minister explained, is that fewer than half of these objectives are close to being met by the 2015 deadline.

These include halving extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, halving hunger in sub-Saharan Africa, reducing the number of deaths of under-fives by three quarters in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, halting and beginning to reverse HIV/Aids in much of Asia, and providing universal primary education in sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia.

When we make a promise to the poorest people in the world we should keep it, not turn our backs on people who are trusting us to help them. David Cameron

Critics of overseas aid argue that money is often misspent, wasted or seized by corrupt governments.

When Justine Greening was appointed international development secretary this month, Lord Ashcroft penned an open letter to her on the conservativehome website.

‘Growing fury’

In a strongly-worded article, the Conservative donor and former deputy chairman said that while cuts were being made to public spending in Britain, “there is growing fury over giving away ever-increasing sums to foreigners”.

He added: “Many Conservatives are horrified by this. They think it morally wrong to carry on giving away such vast sums abroad – more than £300 per household – at a time of domestic spending cuts.

“Few dispute that mountains of money have been wasted over the years; more than £2bn of aid is thought to have been stolen in Afghanistan over the past five years alone.

“By doling out vast sums to often-dubious foreign regimes, we ensure they have less need to respond to their citizens’ needs.

“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.”

Lord Ashcroft also said that India – “a country with its own aid agency and a space programme” – was receiving £280m a year from Britain, adding that “a majority of Britons now favour a reduction in aid spending”.

Public opinion

Polling by YouGov in June suggests Lord Ashcroft is right: 61 per cent of respondents said the government was spending too much on overseas aid, with only 7 per cent saying it was not spending enough.

The Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) was set up by the government in 2011 to ensure that when it comes to spending on overseas aid, the taxpayer receives value for money.

It has produced several reports, and the picture is mixed. In India, it found that the Department for International Development (DfID), which dispenses 90 per cent of British aid, had “made a positive contribution to improvements in health and education”, with a reduction in infant mortality and improvements in “learning achievements”.

But in east Africa, while more children were being educated, “the quality of education provided is low and a large majority of children are failing to achieve basic literacy and numeracy”.

‘Insufficiently robust’

ICAI has also scrutinised the £178m Afghanistan received in bilateral aid in 2011-12 and found that “DFID’s financial management processes are insufficiently robust given the challenges of the environment”, with ” too much reliance on partners to take appropriate action in detecting fraud and corruption”.

The commission is also concerned about the government’s decision to increase the proportion of aid going to “fragile and conflict-affected countries”, which was likely to “expose UK aid to higher levels of corruption risk”.

So aid can work, but there are also examples where it is falling short. The challenge for the government, with ICAI breathing down its neck, is to demonstrate that the best intentions are matched by the best management of taxpayers’ money.