The Coalition wants aid projects to contribute to the national interest, but Labour argue this will lead to the `securitisation' of the international aid budget. Are we witnessing a fundamental re-think about what aid should be used for?
The ring-fencing of the international development budget was announced with great fanfare by the Coalition Government as a means to demonstrate its progressive credentials and reinforce the UK's commitment to reducing poverty overseas. More recently Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg
said that “our decision to ring fence the aid budget is not only morally right but in our national interest – having a knock-on effect on security, migration and trade.” A leaked DfID document highlights the weight placed by the Coalition Government on the national interest element of that formulation. It revealed that the new national security council, which oversees all aspects of foreign policy, has specified that aid projects in the developing world must make the "maximum possible contribution" to British national security.
Behind protests over the
‘securitization' of the aid budget, there is a more subtle dynamic at work. The pressure on the UK's public finances has resulted in all government spending – ring-fenced or not – being subjected to the question: what exactly are we paying for? As a result, the supposed outcomes produced by the money in question are played up or new outcomes are included to provide ‘we are getting more for less' justification. A similar dynamic is occurring in the US, where considerations of public finances, in an equally dire state, have doubtlessly exerted some influence over Hillary Clinton's recent assertion that the US international health aid could be used as a public diplomacy tool to win the ‘hearts and minds' of hostile countries.
There are at least three issues that arise from all of this.
Firstly, not enough research has been conducted to ascertain whether aid projects do in fact ‘win hearts and minds'. The
research that has been done suggests that this is not the case and that perceptions are to a great extent based on wider issues of foreign policy. After the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, Pakistan, the US pledged $50m and took an active and visible role in the relief. A widely-cited poll taken a month after the quake showed that the percentage of Pakistanis with a favorable opinion of the US had doubled, from 23% to 46%. However, it took only six months for that percentage to fall back to its base level. This ought not to come as much of a surprise considering the overly simplistic and slightly patronising assumptions behind the logic: that people in developing countries base their perceptions of a donor country's values and intentions purely on aid received.
The second issue is that the leaked DfID document places a strong emphasis on supporting projects in “fragile states” that focus on “peace building and state building”. If this means bolstering civil society, nurturing local media and discussion and supporting effective communication strategies, then this is a good thing. However, there is a tension between this aim and DfID's other goal of enhanced accountability (read “value demonstrated”) in international aid, an approach which tends to skew investment into programmes that can offer easily calculated benefits such as health projects, and away from democracy-strengthening initiatives. Will these two objectives of “peace/state building” and “accountability” be reconciled, or will they combine to create a situation in which development money is channeled into building up militaries and police forces, as feared by Labour?
The third issue is: “what is international aid for”? Do we give aid because it is "morally right"? Or because it is in "our national interest"? If aid money is to serve the national interest, might it be better spent on communicating British foreign policy? What if there are better or more cost effective means than aid to garner goodwill, if that is the objective?
And then there are the recipients of aid, too often portrayed as the voiceless poor who need a celebrity to speak for them. What do they want?