Well-heeled consultants (med spejlblanke sko) and companies in the west are the beneficiaries of a global aid system which results in less than half of any amount of aid actually ending up eradicating poverty in the developing world, according to a report out Friday, reports the World Bank press review.
Just over a month before Britain will make a doubling of aid a centerpiece of the G8 Gleneagles summit, the charity ActionAid said the bulk of the money currently allocated was wasted, misdirected or recycled within rich countries.
It found that 61 percent of aid flows were “phantom” (ikke-eksisterende spøgelsesbistand) rather than “real,” rising to almost 90 percent in the case of France and the United States.
The report accused rich countries of “political grandstanding” and highlighted the ways in which they were disguising how real aid flows were even lower than they appeared to be.
Compared with a UN target of spending 0,7 percent, rich countries were ostensibly spending 0,25 percent of their national income on aid each year. The figure came down to 0,1 percent when “phantom” aid was stripped out.
The G7 countries – Britain, the US, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Japan – spent only 0,07 percent of national income on real aid and would need a tenfold increase to hit the UN target, ActionAid said.
Britain, according to the research, is one of the better performing countries, but still allows 29 percent of the money spent by the Department for International Development (DfID – det britiske Danida)) to be squandered on “phantom” aid. The UK was spending 0,24 percent of gross domestic product on “real” aid in 2003.
The report quotes a DfID official as saying that foreign experts giving technical advice in Vietnam, for example, are paid 18.000-27.000 US dollar (ca. 106.000 – 160.000 DKR) a month, compared with 1.500-3.000 dollar (8.850 – 17.000 DKR) for local experts.
DfID rejected the reports findings. – It is simply nonsense to suggest that a third of UK aid is “phantom”, said Hilary Benn, the international development secretary.
– ActionAids figures just don’t stack up. It is absurd to argue that debt relief, or practical advice from technical experts, is not real aid, added Benn.
ActionAid said the report did not invalidate the need for more financial assistance, saying that where aid was actually delivered it was helping to tackle poverty.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
