Foreign aid value for money ‘failings’
A “DAMNING” independent report into the Government’s £13billion aid budget has found widespread failure to monitor value for money.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact found concerns over eight of the 24 case studies it looked at.
The report also flagged up the Department for International Development’s failure to find ways of assessing value for money across different target groups.
It criticised a lack of coordination between centrally managed programmes and projects based in countries where billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent.
Senior Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: “This is yet another damning indictment of our overseas aid programme. This is what happens when you guarantee a certain amount of money – it is spent on programmes which are not good value.”
Under David Cameron Britain committed to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid.
The report said: “In eight of our 24 programmes, we found value for money indicators identified in business cases were not being monitored as planned.
“At times assessments appear to have been written in order to make a case for proceeding, rather than to test whether value for money is really being achieved.”
In its summary it also noted: “DfID has yet to develop methods for assessing value for money across different target groups, to inform operational decision making.”
The commission’s report comes amid an aid worker sex scandal and Government calls for charities to reveal their safeguarding arrangements.
Oxfam workers and those from other overseas aid organisations are accused of sexual exploitation and abuse while organising programmes paid for by the British taxpayer in Haiti, Chad and other crisis-hit countries.
A spokesman for DfID pointed out the commission’s report recognised that the department has been “a global champion” for value for money in the aid sector and “leading the rest of the world in pushing vital reforms through the international aid system”.
MANY of the foreign aid projects that the Government supports with its £13billion aid budget are not monitored in terms of value for money, according to a new report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI). The report expressed concerns over a third of the cases it considered. As this newspaper has stressed throughout its Stop The Foreign Aid Madness crusade the mandatory target of 0.7 per cent of GDP means that aid is measured in terms of “how much?” rather than “how effective?”
The recent Oxfam crisis has also pointed to a lack of scrutiny across the board. Carelessness of this kind can no longer be tolerated. The public has had enough and wants government and charities held to account.