UK’s foreign aid makes us safer... and richer
WHENEVER I am asked by my Sutton Coldfield constituents how on earth I can justify Britain spending so much on overseas aid, I always think of one of the most moving experiences of my life.
I was in Rwanda when I met Beata, who had given birth to eight children, only four of whom were still alive. She had tears in her eyes because she had come to a newly opened family planning clinic paid for by British taxpayers and had been offered contraception for the first time.
Next week I am returning to Rwanda with fellow Tories and volunteers who will join doctors, nurses and others as part of Project Umubano, the Conservative Party’s social action project in Africa, now in its tenth year. We will be helping train 700 teachers and supporting others to develop business skills.
Our trip comes at a time when our international development policy is facing unprecedented attacks. For instance, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is often criticised over human rights.
But this is a country that just over 20 years ago suffered a genocide in which nearly one million people died in 90 days while the world looked the other way. Rwanda was rescued from unimaginable barbarity by Kagame. Under him, it has undergone an extraordinary transformation.
In the past five years more than a million of citizens have been lifted out of poverty. I am proud it has done so with support from British aid. Of course progress needs to be made on political freedom and human rights. But before those steeped in centuries of Parliament denigrate an emerging democracy, they should show humility. Our own record in respect, for example, of Iraq is open to question.
I understand voters’ anger when reports appear that suggest their taxes have been squandered or stolen by corrupt dictators. But those reports are not always true. It is an extraordinary irony that, while Britain’s aid programme is respected and praised around the world, it is viewed as controversial here. This does not mean taxpayer money spent on development should not face fierce scrutiny, with zero tolerance of waste or corruption. That is why in 2010, as International Development Secretary, I set up an independent watchdog. Every penny is spent in our national interest. Tackling conflict, misery and poverty makes Britain safer and more prosperous, too.
Had taxpayers not dug deep to help refugees from Syria and surrounding countries, millions more of these desperate people would have placed themselves into the hands of the traffickers and headed our way.
And the next time someone asks me what on earth am I doing wasting my time and money in God-forsaken Rwanda, I know I will be able to look them in the eye and tell them this Tory project has done a tiny bit of good in a country that has been to hell and back.
Every penny we spend abroad is in our interest