James Delingpole of the UK’s Telegraph is speaking out. Let’s hope his tell-it-like-it-is attitude goes viral:
The biggest recipient of our foreign aid largesse is currently Pakistan to which over the next four years we will be sending a total of £1.4 billion. This is roughly the same amount that Pakistan has earmarked to spend on a new fleet of Chinese made submarines; these will go nicely with the two squadrons of Chinese J-10 fighters which Pakistan has also bought at a cost of $1.4 billion. So, in effect, our foreign aid donations are helping to underwrite the military expansion of the country which until recently was shielding the world’s number one Islamist terrorist, organised the massacre in Bombay and is doing so much to fund the Taliban insurgency killing and maiming our forces in Afghanistan.
Hear, hear. It’s hard to find a corrupt regime, not living off overtaxed North Americans, Europeans and Australasians. As Ian Birrell of the London Evening Standard highlighted earlier this year:
For all the noble intentions, the torrent of Western aid all too often erodes rather than builds civil society. It encourages corruption, fosters dependency, undermines innovation, reduces local investment and even boosts military spending. After all, a government handed huge chunks of revenue from abroad has less incentive to respond to the needs of its citizens at home.
A report from Harvard Medical School found that when health-related aid was given to governments in sub-Saharan Africa they often reduced spending on health. Politicians let aid pay for schools and hospitals, allowing them to steal money or spend it on security. Then they win elections using bribery or violence rather than by providing decent public services and being accountable to voters.
Development is founded on a bedrock of good governance. But British aid is even funding political repression. Human Rights Watch has brilliantly exposed how our money is used in countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda to shore up autocratic regimes and quash dissent.
I’m not opposed to all foreign aid (especially for emergencies) but creating dependency relationships, on the backs of the West’s overworked working-classes is more than a scam. It’s financial abuse - and uncompassionate with so much poverty in our backyards.
For more straight talk, I’d urge readers to read Dambisa Moyo, a sharp international economist who comments on foreign aid issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment