04/02/2015
In several posts on this blog, we've argued that foreign aid should be linked with development, specifically as a tool to help relieve reduce migration pressure in less developed countries in a way that will directly or indirectly reduce unwanted immigration to this country.
Currently, the UK is committed to spending 0.7 percent of GDP (GNI) on overseas aid, equivalent to about
£12 billion a year. Yet, according to the
OECD, when it comes to directing that spending, it takes what is called a "selective approach", working on "a limited number of policy areas".
The UK has, we are told, chosen to focus on anti-corruption, transparency, trade and, in particular, climate change, where £3.87 billion has been allocated to the
International Climate Fund (ICF).
Diplomatically, the OECD regards this approach as "useful" but, it observes, while this approach is effective in supporting coherent action on selected topics, there is no systematic way to ensure that conflicts between policy objectives are addressed.
Crucially, it then observes that focusing on "win-win opportunities" has meant less attention on mitigating the risk that other policies â notably migration â impact negatively on development. The awareness of potential trade-offs, it adds, "is low".
Now go to last Monday and we have
the report of the House of Commons International Development Committee, where we see another term introduced: "policy coherence for development" (PCD). This, says the Committee, is supposedly at the heart of a "new" approach to overseas aid spending - the idea of "working across Government in the UK, and with global partners in the multilateral system, to maximise the impact on development of all the UK's actions".
The idea that government departments working together "to maximise the impact of development" should be regarded as a "new" approach tells its own story. The OECD, however, is less reticent. It says:
⦠the lack of a comprehensive approach to ensuring its development efforts are not undermined by other government policies means potential incoherence in other policy areas can be overlooked. It also means opportunities might be missed for stakeholders to provide evidence on and solutions to problems of incoherence. For instance, little has been done to address potential links between migration policy and development.
Of the amount spend on aid, however, about £1.4 billion was contributed to the EU aid budget amounting to about, some 16 percent of Department for International Development's (DfID) total aid spending.
However, it will come as no surprise to learn that,
in a review of DfID's overview of EU aid spending, it was found that there was no effective performance management system in place. And while the EU's scale and influence provided an opportunity for development impact, this was not being effectively harnessed.
In other words, not only is the direct spending by DfID not properly directed at attainable and necessary policy objectives, the Department has no effective means of making sure that money going to the EU is properly spent either.
Yet, despite all this, the Committee "strongly endorses" the continuing need to maintain development spending at 0.7 percent of GNI, something which
The Times picked up in what was actually minimal media interest.
Weak as ditchwater, the Committee actually lacked any substantive recommendations, that would indicate serious scrutiny. It simply recommended that cross-Government working should be improved and that DfID should make policy coherence for development "a higher priority".
Yet, despite the high profile of immigration as an issue in this country, and the global refugee crisis, which is putting unprecedented pressure on the asylum system in Europe â with more to come this year, there is barely any reference to migration, and no criticism of DfID's failure to address these issues.
Even a modest redirection of spending, though, could have a dramatic effect in improving policy coherence. For instance, the UNHCR in 2013 presented
a global budget of US$3,924 million, revised to the unprecedented level of US$5,335 million. Diversion of just the amount paid to the EU to the UN agency could significantly enhance its capabilities.
Directed at improving the conditions of refugees close to their countries of origin, such spending might have a real effect in reducing migratory pressure, tackling the problem of asylum seekers at source.
Strangely, we don't see any recognition
from Ukip about the role of aid spending in reducing migration, nor any questioning as to why DfID has been given huge amounts to spend without having "policy coherence for development". You would have thought that this should come first, so that our money achieves a worthwhile effect.
Thus, while cuts in overseas aid might be an easy option to demand, a more considered response might be to ask what outcomes we could expect from aid spending, how best those can be achieved, and how much we would have to spend to achieve them.
Then, and only then, would we be able to make rational decisions as to what the aid budget should be, something which neither the MPs in the International Development Committee nor any political party seem to be able to do.
