Overseas aid is among the sectors that would not be largely affected by the major funding cuts planned by the new U.K. coalition government. The move is “stupid,” Andrew Gilligan of the Telegraph argues.
“It is surely a stupid proposition that social services, schools, housing and the rest should take higher-than-necessary cuts in order to protect the untouchable empire of the Department for International Development,” Gilligan says, while arguing that the proposed spending cut should target economic recovery and the generation of future tax revenues.
Gilligan notes that available figures of the U.K.’s spending on foreign aid for the past years show that the country has funded a large number of programs in developed countries including Singapore, China, India, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.
He does note that the majority or some 56 percent of DfID’s funds go to the least developed countries, particularly in Africa.
“Even here (Africa), though, there is a growing consensus that decades of international aid have often actually made things worse,” Gilligan argues.
Alex Singleton, also of the Telegraph, agrees with Gilligan. He says it is “wrong” for the coalition government to make spending up to 0.7 percent of the U.K.’s gross domestic product for overseas aid a legal requirement.
“They are going to turn DFID into the world’s biggest funder of a global welfare state… This expediture is wrong, not just because Britain cannot afford it, but because massive splurges in aid do not work. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that aid causes poverty,” Singleton says.
