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Aiding and Abetting Ppi-Xxiv:Aiding and Abetting Ppi-Xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page I Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page i Aiding and Abetting Foreign aid failures and the 0.7% deception Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page ii Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page iii Aiding and Abetting Foreign aid failures and the 0.7% deception Jonathan Foreman Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society London Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page iv First Published December 2012 © Civitas 2012 55 Tufton Street London SW1P 3QL email: [email protected] All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-906837-44-0 Independence: Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society is a registered educational charity (No. 1085494) and a company limited by guarantee (No. 04023541). Civitas is financed from a variety of private sources to avoid over-reliance on any single or small group of donors. All publications are independently refereed. All the Institute’s publications seek to further its objective of promoting the advancement of learning. The views expressed are those of the authors, not of the Institute. Typeset by Kevin Dodd Printed in Great Britain by Berforts Group Ltd Stevenage SG1 2BH Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page v Contents Page Author vii Acknowledgements viii Executive Summary ix Introduction xiv Part 1: British Aid Basics 1. The Basics of British Foreign Aid 3 2. UK Aid and Unasked Questions 9 3. Aid Myth and Aid Reality 18 Part 2: What Aid Does and Does Not Achieve Introduction 27 4. The Claims of Development Aid 29 5. Assessing the Impact of Aid 38 6. Assessing the Impact of Aid on Africa 45 Part 3: Aid and its Contradictions 7. The Nomenclatural Fallacy 51 8. Perverse Incentives and the Aid Industry 54 Part 4: UK Aid Targets and Goals 9. Magic Numbers, Foolish Commitments 59 Part 5: Development Aid and its Critics Introduction 69 10. Aid and Varieties of Actual Harm 71 11. The History of Foreign Aid 79 12. Alternatives to Development Aid 87 13. The Expansion of the Aid Industry 102 v Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page vi AIDING AND ABETTING Part 6: ‘Masters in Mufti’: Humanitarian Aid and its Critics 14. Emergency Aid and the NGO Sector 109 15. Problems with Emergency and Humanitarian Aid 115 Part 7: DfID Policies and Problems 16. The Latest Reforms 137 17. Problematic Choices and Countries for UK Aid 146 18. DfID and the Two Types of Aid 155 19. DfID and NGO Culture and Ideologies 160 20. DfID and Corruption 166 21. DfID and the Use of Aid as a Moral or 170 Political Lever 22. DfID’s Own Accountability and Transparency 176 Part 8: What Works and What Doesn’t Work in Aid 23. Aid Effectiveness 181 24. ‘Best Practice’ in Development Aid 184 Part 9: Conclusions and Recommendations 25. General Conclusions 193 26. Recommendations 198 27. Suggestions 203 Bibliography 213 Notes 222 vi Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page vii Author Jonathan Foreman is a writer, researcher and editor based in London and New Delhi. With an academic background in history and law, his primary areas of interest are urban policy, security and defence, South Asian affairs and film. He is currently co-editor of The Indian Quarterly and a Senior Research Fellow at Civitas. Foreman was one of the founders for the British monthly magazine Standpoint and served as its deputy editor until 2009. In recent years he has reported from Beirut and Mumbai for Standpoint, from Pakistan for the Daily Telegraph Magazine, from Afghanistan for National Review, and from the Chad/Darfur border for Men’s Vogue. In 2005 Vanity Fair sent him to Baghdad and Basra to report on Coalition efforts to train Iraqi security forces. He was formerly based in New York, where he was at various times a war correspondent, leader writer and film critic for the New York Post, a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a contributing editor at the U.S. National Law Journal. He has written for a variety of publications on both sides of the Atlantic including The New Yorker, The Spectator, The Financial Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The First Post. vii Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page viii Acknowledgements I should like to express my gratitude to my Civitas colleagues Justin Shaw, Director David Green and Editorial Director Robert Whelan for suggesting and shepherding this project; and to Elliot Bidgood for his assistance. I would also like to thank Justine Hardy, Maureen Lines and Baroness Cox – all of whom are outstanding examples of courage, integrity and the very best in aid work – for many inspiring and enlightening conversations about aid over the years. I also owe a debt to the anonymous referees who made many useful suggestions to improve the book. viii Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page ix Executive Summary At a time of cuts in public expenditure, the UK govern - ment’s commitment to increasing foreign aid to 0.7% of GDP seems perverse. Many recent non-altruistic justifica - tions for the UK’s lavish aid budget – such as the claims that more generous foreign aid will stop mass immigration, prevent wars such as that in Afghanistan and secure goodwill and economic benefits for the UK – have little or no basis in reality. This paper argues for a radical rethinking of Britain’s foreign aid policies and fundamental reform of the Department for International Development (DfID). Its position reflects not only the evident failure of six decades and more than three trillion dollars in official development aid (ODA) to foster economic growth in many poor parts of the world, but also the negative effects of much of that aid on the people and governments of some of the world’s poorest and most unstable countries. Not only has there been no correlation between high levels of development aid and economic growth; there is evidence of an inverse relationship between the two, thanks to the corrupting effects of aid on fragile polities. This paper also examines the complicated and often troubling realities that underlie emergency or humani - tarian aid. An understanding of what works and what does not work in the various forms of aid is hard to reach, partly because of the lack of genuine accountability and transparency in the aid industry and partly because dishonesty – for the best of motives – has so often been the industry’s default setting. Aid organisations behave as if good intentions matter more than outcomes. This is as true of Britain’s DfID as it ix Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page x AIDING AND ABETTING is of private non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international organisations like UNHCR. DfID compares well with other international donor bodies with regard to efficiency and transparency. It still stands accused of muddled thinking about priorities; self- deception about the feasibility of checking projects on the ground for waste and corruption; disingenuousness about the historical effectiveness of bilateral and multilateral development aid; and cultural inhibitions about using aid in ways that might benefit the United Kingdom and its people. In general, DfID’s operations continue to be informed by an extreme absolutist view of aid, one that is suspicious of any benefits that may accrue to the UK. This is inappropriate for a government department. Although this paper highlights the failings of develop - ment aid and the much less well-known problems intrinsic to humanitarian aid, it does not advocate the ending of all British foreign aid. Rather it urges that future UK aid be reality-based rather than faith-based, i.e. it should rest on realistic assumptions about the likely fate of donations to poor country governments, UN agencies, international bureaucracies, major global charities and local NGOs. This paper does not take a position on the desirability of democratic and humanitarian conditions on aid, though it takes exception to the hypocrisy and inconsistency with which the UK government currently imposes such con - ditions. It makes little moral sense, for instance, to cut off aid to Malawi because of that country’s treatment of homo - sexuals but to continue subsidising destructive regimes in countries like Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Aid conditionality may well be desirable in general but it requires a pre- existing clarity about the primary goals of British aid. Despite decades of lavish failure and negative outcomes including the enrichment of corrupt tyrants, the subsidising of warlords and the subversion of good x Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv:Aiding and Abetting ppi-xxiv 20/11/12 15:03 Page xi EXECUTIVE SUMMARY government, aid work continues to enjoy uncritical support from sections of the media. This is not surprising given the existence of a nexus between Western media organisations and the aid agencies on which many of them depend for access and transport in conflict areas. Recommendations 1) Abandonment of the 0.7% target The 0.7% of GDP aid target should not be enshrined in law and should be abandoned. Britain’s aid budget should be subject to at least the same austerity measures as those essential departments of state upon which the welfare and security of British citizens depend.
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