The Army would spend aid money far better than unaccountable charities

There seems to be no end to the scandals coming out of the aid sector. Instead of disciplinary proceedings and dismissal, sexually inappropriate or bullying behaviour leads to a better job in another charity. It’s like some creepy game where the Snakes always go up the Ladders.

Justin Forsyth, former head of Save The Children, is said to have engaged in The Thick of It style unpleasantness before getting a plum job at Unicef. He has apologised “unreservedly”. Forsyth’s mate Brendan Cox is alleged to have harassed female staff with lewd texts before moving on with impunity. A disciplinary inquiry was conveniently abandoned.

Typifying the moral doltishness is Mark Goldring, the head of Oxfam, who actually complained about criticism of the charity’s reaction (or lack thereof) when staff were found to have held orgies in Haiti. It’s “not as if we murdered babies in their cots”, he moaned. No, Oxfam allowed disgusting individuals to move on to jobs elsewhere to save itself embarrassment rather than

protecting young women from them in the future. What could possibly be the problem?

A retired United Nations official tells me that such abuse is endemic. When he worked in the Congo, “the only people I saw acting honourably and delivering aid properly were the British Army”. Charities had quotas, which meant they had to employ unqualified locals, who were often among the worst abusers.

Wouldn’t it make sense to shut down the Department for International Development, which distributes £13.3billion of our money annually to some of these unaccountable charities, and give the money instead to the Army, which could carry out aid operations effectively and without sexually exploiting the local population? Unlike aid organisations, the Army has a chain of command and a system of discipline which actually works. Surely, it’s worth thinking about.