In 1970, the UN General Assembly set a bold target to eliminate extreme global poverty. They proposed that countries who had richer, more developed economies should aim to contribute the equivalent of at least 0.7% of their gross national income to international aid and development. Fast forward to 2016, and this is still a pipe dream for many advanced economies (only five countries currently give 0.7% and over). Despite this, significant progress has been made.
Since 1990, the world has halved the amount of people living in extreme poverty; an achievement that has saved millions of lives. In the same amount of time we’ve also halved the amount of children that die before the age of five. But despite this, there is often skepticism amongst the general public; it costs too much money, nothing ever changes, why bother?!
These are false arguments that facts alone can disprove. That said, there is a rather large elephant in the room and its name is corruption (what a rubbish name for an elephant).
Opponents of aid have long stated that money sent overseas to help developing countries just props up corrupt officials and that until this practice is shut down, we should cut the funding to these country. Well the sad fact is that yes, corruption does happen in developing countries (actually in ALL countries) and sometimes aid money ends up in the wrong hands, but this isn’t enough of a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Today the UK’s Daily Telegraph published an article authored by the Robert Barrington, Executive Director of Transparency International UK. In this article, Robert argues that cutting off aid because of corrupt officials is “punishing people twice over.”
“Imagine a town in England,” he says, “which has been devastated by flooding.” The government wants to put in a few million pounds both right away and in the long-term to clean up and then to rebuild the flood defences,” he continues. “But a couple of years ago, one of the councillors was convicted of corruption - and doubts still linger over some of the others. Do we say to the citizens of the town 'bad luck, the money would just get stolen, so dip into your own pockets instead'? Of course not. That would be punishing people twice over."
Robert Barrington is right. By cutting off aid, we would only hurt the people that need it the most. “It is not the fault of the citizens if they have a corrupt government; and if you take away the aid, you punish them twice.”
Accountability and transparency are key if we are to see the end of corruption but it’s not as simple as cutting off aid. It’s absolutely legitimate for a donor country to demand to know where their development money is going, and it makes sense that any future deals should demand this. The reality is, 45 years ago at the United Nations General Assembly, leaders made a promise to the world’s poorest- now is NOT the time to break it over the actions of a corrupt few. It's about benefiting the people, not punishing them "twice over."