British foreign aid

Vocal critics of the present British govt consider the merger of DfiD with the Foreign Office to be a conscious shift

While the lofty rhetoric accompanying international aid may suggest that it is entirely motivated by altruistic aims, foreign aid is also a tool in the arsenal of richer countries to either entice or compel poorer countries in pursuit of their own geostrategic and economic goals.

Pakistan, like many other poorer South Asian, African and South American countries, has first-hand experience of seeing the ebb and flow of aid from bilateral and multilateral agencies, depending on its perceived utility in serving geostrategic imperatives.

Besides receiving aid in the form of loans from multilateral and regional agencies like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, Pakistan has got significant aid from bilateral donors like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and to a lesser degree from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfiD), the bilateral arm of its former colonising nation.

Much is written about the politics and policies of American aid (including by this author), so this article will instead focus on recent changes made to UK’s aid agency, and what that implies in terms of addressing development challenges on the ground.

Given the adverse impact of British colonialism around the world, it seems reasonable to expect that the UK should be at the forefront of trying to address some of the lingering problems which now plague its former colonies.

Britain had committed to the UN’s target for rich countries to allocate 0.7% of their gross national income for international development back in the mid-1970s. But it is only over the past few years that Britain began meeting this modest target. The British government also established DfiD over two decades ago, which was meant to work independently from other government institutions in the bid to make aid delivery transparent and to help maximise its impact.

While foreign aid provision via DfiD was prone to political compulsions as well, the recent British government decision to merge DfiD with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has caused significant consternation. Even moderate and pragmatic analysts, who stress the need for cross-governmental coordination, consider the British decision of putting the international aid budget in the hands of the Foreign Office a bad idea that will further politicise aid provision.

A UK network for international development NGOs has described the merger of DfiD with the Foreign Office to have come at the worst possible time as the world is still reeling from a global pandemic. The Foreign Office evidently lacks expertise in global health systems, humanitarian response, and disease prevention and eradication. Subjecting DfiD to the Foreign Office is thus said to run the risk of development aid being more readily diverted to address UK foreign policy goals rather than addressing urgent humanitarian and development needs, which have become more urgent due to Covid-19.

Merging different government departments may seem attractive to conservative British policymakers, as it seems to offer short-term administrative efficiency gains, which sit well with their desire to curb public spending. However, in the long run, this merger move will prove to have been a step in the wrong direction. There is emergent evidence from Australia and Canada that merging foreign affairs departments and aid departments erode confidence in aid agencies, and it does not improve the quality of aid being delivered to those in need.

The more vocal critics of the present British government consider the merger of DfiD with the Foreign Office to be a conscious shift which is subjecting internationally endorsed development goals to myopic foreign policy interests and selfish trade and corporate interests. Given these moves, it should not be a surprise to see the UK increasingly spending more of its international aid on curbing the flow of immigration, improving security ties, and aggressively boosting British trade interests, instead of helping alleviate poverty and deprivation in poorer countries, including Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2020.

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