Overseas aid is funding human rights abuses

„The curious modern creed that foreign aid is automatically virtuous has its origins in two powerful social phenomena: the collapse of trust in politics, and the cult of celebrity. Ambitious politicians crave the stardust that attaches to pop stars such as Bono. Meanwhile, their strategists have noted that while the membership of mainstream political parties is in freefall, organisations such as Oxfam and Save the Children boast millions of supporters. New Labour was the first to take advantage. Tony Blair’s decision to create a separate Department for International Development (DFID) ensured the endorsement of Bono and others, while making a very plausible grab for the Oxfam vote.

This posed a problem for the Conservative Party, which had a long-standing and well-founded scepticism about foreign aid. The economist Peter Bauer, one of Margaret Thatcher’s gurus, had notoriously claimed that there was no measurable link of any kind between foreign donations and economic development. If anything, thought Bauer, aid probably hinders growth, as it leads directly to corruption, the misallocation of resources and the erosion of civil society. With the arrival of David Cameron, the Tories gave up. One of his early moves was to invite Bono to the party conference. The new leader’s international development spokesman, Andrew Mitchell, embraced the New Labour paradigm. Teams of Tory ministers and MPs accompanied Mitchell to build schools in Rwanda. There was a naked calculation behind this idealism: to rebrand the Conservative Party.

All this may have been admirable. But the cross-party consensus on overseas aid was dangerous. There was no one to investigate reports of embezzlement and express scepticism. Meanwhile, spending soared from £2.6 billion in 1999 to £6.5 billion in 2005, and a prodigious £8.7 billion in the current financial year – approximately £300 for each and every British family. The process reached its apotheosis in last week’s spending review. With cuts in almost every other department, DFID emerged the clear winner, with spending projected to rise by an extraordinary 37 per cent over the next four years.”