British Overseas Aid – a valuable service to the world, or largely a waste of money?
Does the British taxpayer receive value for the extraordinary amount of money spent providing assistance and development to foreign countries?
Having spent over 20 years of my life as a small cog in the massive overseas aid industry (for that is what it is), I think I can state with some degree of certainty, the answer is - no.
To illustrate the reasoning behind my conclusion, may I provide two (out of many) examples of the utter futility of working in this area. The examples are quite old, but I’m quite sure nothing has changed.
Example 1 – Assistance to Uganda
As an accountant, I was asked by the department overseeing UK Aid to go to Uganda to restructure its tax system, by working in management as one of the Deputy Commissioners. I thought this was a good idea - let the country raise its own money and stop aid in the medium term. At the end of the 2.5 year project the tax department was running well. However the person designated to continue my work, a Ugandan national, had no experience, was I understand, previously a coffee salesman in the USA, but was nevertheless a family ‘acquaintance’ of the President. This did not bode well.
13 years later I spent 2 years trying to assist the Uganda Tax Authority to modernize, paid through a basket of funds provide by UK, Netherlands and Belgium. The organization was struggling to control rampant corruption. Restructuring was difficult, as great resistance was met from within the organization. Indeed at one point the Dutch project manager overseeing the Netherlands part of the basket development fund called a management meeting to threaten to withdraw his support for the project. Despite this, the project had only limited success and nothing of significance was achieved.
Another 5 years passed by, and I was asked by the Uganda Tax Authority to write a report on how the tax authority was performing. My honest appraisal was not welcomed (to summarize, corrupt and incompetent) and unsurprisingly I was not asked to work for the organization again, which came as a bit of a relief.
Example 2 – Assistance to Albania
Sometime after my Uganda efforts, I spent 6 years in Albania, once again restructuring their tax system. After 4 years we had achieved a semi-accountable tax department, with all personnel fully trained and capable of doing the job properly. Then a new government was elected, and every single person, all placed by the outgoing government in the tax department, was dismissed. 4 years of work was wasted. Although the Department overseeing UK Aid decided to carry on with the project, against my specific recommendation to cut the project short, another 2 years was spent to achieve very little as the new government has no interest in the project.
So how can the UK government ensure our money is well spent? The nuclear option is to only provide disaster and humanitarian assistance, which is the option I would support. If the UK carries on like it is at present, then I suggest far more stringent scrutiny is required both at the design of a project and at the end of the project to evaluate if the British taxpayer is receiving value for money. From my personal experience of over 20 years working to deliver development project on behalf of UK Aid, the EU, the World Bank and other assorted agencies, there is a need for this scrutiny not to be undertaken by ‘independent experts’ in the relevant field contracted by the UK government. It should be undertaken by independent experts in the relevant field contracted through an oversight body external to the UK Aid department.
My personal one and only experience of evaluating a UK Aid project (assistance to the Sierra Leone tax authority) was that the honest evaluation of failure was not appreciated, and was never to be repeated. Hence this being my one and only assignment.
Please comment below on why you voted as you did.