7 Replies to “Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill”

  1. Foreign aid should be aimed at environmentally sustainable improvement of the lives of poor people. Unfortunately, all too often it is used either as a geo-political tool to extend our influence around the world or as a means of gaining business for British companies (I am sure the same is true for aid from many other countries) – or both and and benefits to the poor are a distant afterthought.

      1. Hi Murray
        Perhaps I was overly harsh. It is difficult to judge. I imagine the statistics in the page you link to are broadly correct but they don’t provide much detail on exactly how the money was spent. I am quite sure there are many projects that are doing much more harm than good and not just in the humanitarian aid section of the budget. I am also sure there are many people working on projects who are dedicated to achieving real improvements in the lives of the poor and endure harsh working conditions to achieve this.
        There is certainly some wastage and funds that get wrongly diverted (I have myself seen food marked as foreign aid “not for re-sale” on sale in African markets) but that is perhaps inevitable – in messy, chaotic situations you can’t guarantee that everything will work exactly as intended. Of course there should be a strong effort to ensure that aid is spent effectively and that as near as possible all of the seventy pence is beneficial to the people who need it but I would stress that I am strongly in favour of maintaining our overseas aid spending.

        Going back to my point about using aid to benefit ourselves I would suggest that there are many voices in the government and on the Tory benches who push strongly for that – the criterion for these people is not about how poor people might benefit so much about how we can secure contracts for UK businesses or gain allies in strategic areas. To my mind that should not be the purpose of our aid spending.

        Then of course we have UKIP, the Daily Mail and their fellow travelers who would like to cut our foreign aid altogether. I strongly disagree with these people. If people are destitute and in need of assistance I don’t see how it makes a difference if they are in Southall or Somalia. Incidentally, I have seen the odd comment questioning why the RSPB should spend money on overseas conservation and suggesting it should just work on British birds and wildlife. Leaving aside the obvious point that a good deal of our wildlife (especially birds) moves between different countries and doesn’t spend its whole life within the UK, I would say that the same principle applies if a species or population goes extinct – it is just as bad whether that occurs in Suriname or in Surrey.

        1. Oops! That should have read “I am quite sure there are many projects that are doing much more good than harm…”. I somehow managed to sY the complete opposite.

          1. I managed to miss your typo. I’m afraid my limited sources for more discussion have dried up. That’s apart from sensing that Gerald’s references below are going to be useful and important. I need to get into them.

  2. There are many interesting facts on the usage of the aid buget noted in papers by Curtis research http://curtisresearch.org/. For example on support for private education http://curtisresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/Report-DFID-Education-Curtis-September-2015.pdf and support for agribusiness http://curtisresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Hunger-Games-December-2012.pdf

    Also Fullfact itself may be suspect https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/full-fact-gets-charity-status-after-being-rejected-twice.html

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