What we give away

A large part of the Overseas Aid budget is used to buy British products and services, pay the wages of British experts, and service debts to British institutions, so the money largely comes back to Britain anyway. And the rest goes to subsidise allies and prop up friendly regimes which might otherwise turn hostile. Perhaps you would be happier if the UK Overseas Aid budget was scrapped - other countries would be delighted to step in, like China, so the UK would lose the business and the influence it buys. So is that really what you want to happen or not, Halimaw?

 

I don't think any one begrudges foreign aid what annoys people is when it gets siphoned of to feather the beds of officials.

 

Are you a politician?

 

Yes, when you post up figures, it always looks as if it was cheques paid to some despot or other. It isn't. It's a line in a budget, and as Pete says, most of it is to pay for Brits' goods and services.

There was a bit of a scandal about US aid. Seems all of it goes on incredibly expensive US consultants and US companies.

 

So not much potential for the old boys network to abuse that then.......................

 

If that is the case why not publish who the money goes to/what it pays for,so the British Taxpayer can see if it is money well spent?
And how does it compare to how much other countries foreign aid budgets,and their influence?
If it's not possible to measure influence,we'll never know whether what we're getting value for money.
Generally speaking,if you pay money to influence an individual or private company,it's called a bribe.....

 

So the only loser is the British Taxpayer - again.

 

Yes, it should be our officials doing the siphoning, not Johnny Foreigners!

No need to be offensive.

Aid = Trade, in this case as in most others.

"We aren't allowed to bribe you guys, so we will give you 'aid' instead. Now, about that trade deal ..."

Glidd! Hand it over.

So many scams, so little time.

Bingo!

That's a shame - in other countries the taxpayer never loses!

 

Yes, 'Aid' is a slightly misleading word here. 'Assistance' is perhaps better. Nothing gets given away.

 

If only the Taliban were prepared to be influenced by us in return for Aid money, we wouldn't need to fight them, or fear them. But perhaps you think that would be a bad thing, on the grounds that it would be a "bribe", Lightning?

 

This should help

 

Great idea. Cut British exports so we keep the stuff ourselves. Why has no-one thought of that one before?

 

The Bribery Act is designed to prevent the making of clandestine payments to individual persons to induce them secretly and corruptly to act against the interests of their own country. Overseas Aid is designed to facilitate the making of open payments to foreign nations to help them develop, to encourage them to buy British, and (among other improvements) to induce them to reduce corruption.

 

Thankfully, Overseas Aid works as it was meant - almost perfectly. Ish.

Shame so few people know what it's for - that included me up until recently.

 

Not quite sticking to the thread,but an interesting point none the less.
As far as the Taleban goes,
If building schools/roads/educating the population/providing clean water hasn't worked,I doubt bunging them a few quid would stop them.
I imagine they are fighting the Allies as a matter of principle,Foreign occupiers,etc,etc.
(We'd probably do the same if a Foreign country invaded Great Britain,and tried to stamp their values onto us)
So I don't think it would work,but probably worth a try.
But if the Government is going to bribe them,do it openly.
Tell us,(and the Afghan population),who the money went to,and why.
And if the Afghans found out the Taleban were just in it for the money,(and I'm not saying they are),they might well be a bit miffed to find it wasn't about principle after all....
The thing with bribes is,if you start paying them,where does it all end?
If it's ok to bung a State to agree with you/not attack you/not ally itself with the other side:
Why not pay the Mafia to stop bullying people/killing Judges who are after them?
And then you might as well pay criminals not to rob people...
Could be called a bribe,could be called protection money.
Foreign Aid sounds a lot like that.(Not all of it,but a good percentage)
Especially given to countries that can well afford to look after their own

 

Let's look at just five examples of Aid in action, shall we.

A. USA sends to Egypt enough aid each year to pay for the Egyptian army. So the army knew it couldn't massacre people or start wars (unlike those in Libya and Syria), because the USA would cut off the aid and the army would be broke. Kept the peace last year, didn't it?

B. UK has been aiding India since 1947, but recently India has got much richer and more developed so UK aid to India is about to be terminated. Now India can and does invest in UK.

C. The government of Somalia collapsed 20 years ago, and the country has been in chaos, poverty and piracy ever since. Now an embryonic government is trying to get started, but has no tax base yet; UK and other donors are providing major temporary support.

D. One of the most desperately poor countries in the world, Haiti, suffered a massive earthquake, hurricane and plague. Aid there is just humanitarian assistance to keep people alive.

E. The Russians agreed to dismantle a lot of old soviet nuclear weapons, on condition the West contributed to the cost. The programme is going well, and the promises are being kept; this counts as aid.

All very different examples, all well justified. Scrapping any of these aid programmes right now would be disgraceful, shaming, and would obviously damage British interests and reputation as all three main parties agree. Various types of aid are often scaled down or ended, when the justification for them ends.

 

Because the Daily Fail cant sell papers using realistic balanced arguments. If they did that they would need to find realistic balanced readers. Foreign aid, like so many things in life is far more complex than just dishing out money.