The malevolence of overseas aid

'Corruption is a fundamental issue that afflicts the everyday lives of the very poorest and thwarts global efforts to lift countries out of poverty.'

'DFID has not… developed an approach equal to the challenge, nor has it focussed its efforts sufficiently on the poor. While some programmes show limited achievements, there is little evidence of impact on corruption levels or in meeting the particular needs of the poor.' The ICAI

THE DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPEMENT (DFID), has come under criticism from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) for not developing an; 'approach equal to the challenge, nor has it focussed its efforts sufficiently on the poor. While some programmes show limited achievements, there is little evidence of impact on corruption levels or in meeting the particular needs of the poor.

            

            DFID’s willingness to engage in programming that explicitly tackles corruption is often constrained by political sensitivity in country. It is not capturing and applying lessons learned. As a result of these findings, we have given a rating of Amber-Red.'

            

            Overseas aid corruption has been ignored by all political parties in the UK regarding our overseas aid budget and its failure to do what it was intended to do. The annual £9 billion  budget was ring-fenced by the Cameron Conservatives in 2010 to help them sanitise their party from being regarded as the 'nasty' party. The party which the Blairite Cameron sought to make popular once more and lead him to what?…a coalition with the Liberal Democrats? Cameron had hoped, through his enchantment with Blair, to replicate the Blair three term strategy for his party, but he has failed to do so.

            

             Ring fencing the overseas aid budget was a ploy by Cameron to make his party appear more humane; more attune to the touchy-feely approach of the Blair government that came before; and more in sync with Tony than Margaret. While many supporters of  his party; who have now crossed over to Ukip, were unconvinced by such a ring-fencing agenda of the DFID. In fact many traditional Conservatives felt betrayed by the Cameron Conservatives to willingly kow-tow to the corruption that the ICAI has now exposed.

            

             The distribution of overseas aid has always been considered a corrupt way of distribution. Not only to the recipients, but by its contributors. The distribution of overseas aid has never been pure and uncorrupted. Even Western governments, including our own have insisted upon a quid-pro-cue, usually involving military sales, in return. But it was seen as unforgivable for any politician to speak of it in terms of African leaders spending it on trips to London's finest emporiums in Oxford Street…that would, and still would be considered racist

THE DFID should be replaced, on an emergency by emergency basis without a Whitehall department  overseeing it. The British people are a generous people who are willing to see their taxes spent whenever a global crises emerges; as with Ebola. All must be done to manage the spread of this disease. But it does not require a department of state to do it with a £9 billion yearly budget.

            

            Whenever a humanitarian crises arises, the government must do what it is able to do to resolve it. Aid should be provided for natural disasters, such as famine relief, earthquakes and outbreaks such as Ebola. Any other kind of aid should be provided by the various and numerouse charities, through the generosity of the public subscribing individually.      

The DFID seems to have no compass other than exploring the possibility of military or other commercial contracts from the various governments we deliver aid to. The West, but in particular the UK, uses the DFID to arrange various commercial contracts involving our UK  industries. Better that we should remove and disassociate ourselves from this practice, by restricting overseas to natural disasters…like Ebola.

            

            We do not need a department of state with a multi-billion pound budget, and a shoal of well paid, well pensioned, civil servants, plus a minister on a ministerial salary in charge to help people in dire need through natural disasters.

            

            With Ebola, it was not the DFID that responded but the military, which nowadays seem to have become nothing more than an army of uniformed social workers. Did, by the way, the cost of the HMS Argus deployment, and 700 soldiers to West Africa, come from the DFID's budget or the MoDs?

THE DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, is not needed. It is a means of bribing the various undemocratic and democratic, but corrupted oversees governments. They are being given oversees aid on a quid-pro-quo basis; a nudge here and a wink there. When you deal with corrupt countries with taxpayers money you care little about how much you spend. As with everything else the politicians spend taxpayers money on, any amount of waste and frivolity which  is quickly forgotten about.

            

            This is why, particularly, but not exclusively, the Labour Party, like to make spending promises to corner the market vote leading up to an election. Politicians, all politicians nowadays, are natural spenders of other people's money. They see it as their own, in the political sense; for if it was really their own, they would merely drop a few quid into a charity bucket, give a tenner a month (or less) by direct debit to an oversees aid charity… or, give a few of their old clothes to a charity shop.

           

             Governments of all countries have a duty to provide financial assistance to the victims of natural disasters as they crop up from time to time. This is the state's only remit; other problems should be and are supported by charities who rely upon the generosity of the British public to keep the aid flowing.

            

             There are now nearly some 80,000 charities concerned with purely the oversees human condition in the UK; they include among them the bulwark of funding for long term diseases, many now overcome in the more advanced countries, but still all too common in the developing world. Billions each year must have been collected by such charities to rid the world of disease endemic to various regions.

            

             There is as whole industry of charities, much greater in numbers than many of the UKs manufacturing industries; all employing, either voluntarily or with salaries, men and women, who in terms of numbers, freely bare comparison with the great manufacturing industries of the past such as textiles. We are fast becoming a charity based economy in terms of the industrial demographic. Yet we still need the DFID?  It is a complete nonsense.

            

             This institution  is there to make politicians garner popular support in the country - or in Dave's case, make the Tories seem less nasty. It is about time that this department of government no longer existed. I bet it has done more in its history to keep corruption alive; more so than it has done to help the people whose plight it was originally intended to help.

            

             The Department For International Development should be unceremoniously cremated and the ashes poured over that fleeting passage of time of such irrelevant departments of state, as a warning to others that politicians may conjure up in the future.

CRISES ABROAD, such as Ebola must be supported by government. Any natural disaster or natural calamity like Ebola. must be tended to, not by a department of state, but by the government itself. We do not need a whole ministry to provide sustenance from natures periodic attacks in the world outside of our own country.

            

              The Department for International Development (DFID), is a politicians source of bribery for commissioning various, but in particular, military contracts from abroad. It is a scandal that has persisted for far too long and needs pruning back. Pruning back to the extent of removing a department of state which has done little to benefit its intended recipients; and more to benefit UK industry.