Why are we "Ring Fencing" Foreign Aid?

[Mojocvh]

ClaphamGT3 said:

Countdown said:

How much of the exports were dependent on foreign aid? All? Some? None?

There you get to one of the key issues around this. The private sector organisations that generate business of the back of Govt trade support focus on tracking the impact of this support for their organisation, but the Govt doesn't really do so effectively at rolled up initiative level.

We are currently working with the cabinet office who are trying to get to grips with this and utilise knowledge management to track benefit delivered for intervention at a tactical level and decide what intervention should be made and where on a strategic level. This doesn't just relate to overseas aid but all govt intervention in the private sector. I agree with you insofar as the time when the real benefit of Govt initiatives can be measured can't come soon enough.

"utilise knowledge management to track benefit delivered for intervention at a tactical level"

Prove it to us, so far you have posted nothing to substantiate anything you have said.

[escargot]

I think claphamgt3 has been pretty clear on the (correct) point that he is making. There is no tangible way at the moment to measure it, therefore how can he give you a quantifiable figure?

The point he is making is logical and obviously correct.

[Mojocvh]

Which takes us nicely back to the thread title.

[escargot]

Because it directly benefits British business and ultimately government tax receipts.

[ClaphamGT3]

Mojocvh said:

ClaphamGT3 said:

Countdown said:

How much of the exports were dependent on foreign aid? All? Some? None?

There you get to one of the key issues around this. The private sector organisations that generate business of the back of Govt trade support focus on tracking the impact of this support for their organisation, but the Govt doesn't really do so effectively at rolled up initiative level.

We are currently working with the cabinet office who are trying to get to grips with this and utilise knowledge management to track benefit delivered for intervention at a tactical level and decide what intervention should be made and where on a strategic level. This doesn't just relate to overseas aid but all govt intervention in the private sector. I agree with you insofar as the time when the real benefit of Govt initiatives can be measured can't come soon enough.

"utilise knowledge management to track benefit delivered for intervention at a tactical level"

Prove it to us, so far you have posted nothing to substantiate anything you have said.

And nor have have you. The issue is, if only you were capable of understanding it, not that it isn't beneficial, but that the Govt don't effectively track the overall benefit delivered

[Countdown]

ClaphamGT3 said:

And nor have have you. The issue is, if only you were capable of understanding it, not that it isn't beneficial, but that the Govt don't effectively track the overall benefit delivered

Does the Govt (or anybody else) have even a rough idea of the benefit delivered?

Or even if ANY benefit is delivered? For example - can it be demonstrated that the UK plc received £X in sales because Country A had received £Y in aid?

[ClaphamGT3]

Countdown said:

Does the Govt (or anybody else) have even a rough idea of the benefit delivered?

Or even if ANY benefit is delivered? For example - can it be demonstrated that the UK plc received £X in sales because Country A had received £Y in aid?

Individual businesses do track this (mine and every other business I know tracks this as part of their BD activity) but Govt doesn't do it effectively

[sjn2004]

escargot said:

Because it directly benefits British business and ultimately government tax receipts.

If Cameron was bothered about that he wouldn't have gone hobknobbing with the Dalai Lama!

[Cobnapint]

There seems no logic at all in ring fencing foreign aid, but I'm afraid it's all down to international agreements and commitments.

I see most of the money we relentlessly pump abroad (while we make members of our armed services, fire brigades and police redundant) goes to Africa.

This has been going on for as long as I can remember. But despite receiving seemingly endless funding from international charities, Live Aid and similar fundraising events, and the G8 agreeing in 2005 to write off $40bn of debt owed to the IMF and World Bank by 18 countries worldwide (14 of them African), Africa still doesn't seem to be making any progress.

Just how much money does it need FFS? By now it should look like Dubai! You can only think that a large percentage of all the aid it gets must have been ghosted away by corrupt leaders.

One light at the end of the tunnel though - all direct aid from the UK to South Africa will end by 2015. How much the 'indirect' aid will still cost is anyones guess.

[AJI]

Nice.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-2366272...

We've bought them a new Aircraft Carrier!

Very kind of Mr Cameron to force us UK tax payers to cough up for this.

[turbobloke]

AJI said:

Nice.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-2366272...

We've bought them a new Aircraft Carrier!

This may have been posted already, but apart from luxury yachts, mansions, supercars, private jets, helicopters and even more supercars for various tinpots (not forgetting their penchant for aircraft carriers) isn't the aim to fund third world countries so they overtake us in the space race?

[Digga]

The cynic in me wonders how any analysis can realistically calculate the opportunity cost to all UK businesses of not spending so much and thereby having lower taxation.

Then, as with the EU, there's the thorny issue of jobs for the boys - nice little fiefdoms for greedy little piggies to get comfortable in, whilst queuing up for an MBE.

[Previous]

turbobloke said:

This may have been posted already, but apart from luxury yachts, mansions, supercars, private jets, helicopters and even more supercars for various tinpots (not forgetting their penchant for aircraft carriers) isn't the aim to fund third world countries so they overtake us

FTFY.

I agree in pronciple with foreign aid, bu tbelieve we should get our own house in order first. Ideally, and when Im elected PM, I would like to see foreign aid only given when there is a budget surplus. In years of deficit it should be given by individual donation only.

[BlackLabel]

Taxpayers' money is funding corruption in foreign countries, a damning report has revealed. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) says the British aid is actively encouraging corrupt practices, such as bribery.

£12b a year and rising is difficult to justify given we are making cuts at home.

Edited by BlackLabel on Friday 31st October 20:03

[Cobnapint]

BlackLabel said:

Taxpayers' money is funding corruption in foreign countries, a damning report has revealed. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) says the British aid is actively encouraging corrupt practices, such as bribery.

£12b a year and rising is difficult to justify given we are making cuts at home.


This has been happening for decades and it's time it stopped.

The leaders of the countries we are pumping millions into must be laughing their fat heads off.
They may even get tea at the palace if they play their cards right. Yet we haven't enough money to provide enough prison places, hospital beds, firemen or armed services personel.

Bloody disgraceful.

Edited by BlackLabel on Friday 31st October 20:03

[Tony427]

In a certain african country, currently fighting Ebola, the World Food Organisation is distributing food to the population and have done for many years.

To do so they have to organise fleets of lorries to carry the food around the country. They have a local manager to organise this.

The local manager signs a contract with a local haulage company to hire some of his wagons for $6,000 per month for a 12 month period.

For this the haulier pays the local WFO manager $500 per month for the contract.

The wagons are never used to transport the food around the country as the food aid is held in the warehouse and sold on the black market by the local WFO management using local gangs and organised crime to ensure the compliance of the population.

How do I know this? The haulier told me when he was over here buying another load of secondhand trucks for his haulage business, heavily subsidised by the WFO. He was very pleased that the WFO didn't use his contracted trucks as they were fully occupied moving other stuff around the country.

I have no reason whatsoever to doubt his story.

[AJS-]

It's an all round win for politicians. You can use other people's money to be "generous" to the poor and needy, to help big companies secure business and create jobs, and also increasing the likelihood of your talent and dedication being recognised by these companies when they're looking for a new non executive director or similar. And it's "only" 0.7 of GDP anyway.

[Mr_B]

Harriet Harman was on QT talking about this. Of course she went straight to the rather emotive point of how dare anyone suggest they cut this figure as it means more babies starving to death. When that's the standard you get, you have no chance of saying something is wrong and we are in some cases making things worse with the attitude of if you chuck enough money at it without any checks, why it can only be doing good.

[turbobloke]

Mr_B said:

Harriet Harman was on QT talking about this. Of course she went straight to the rather emotive point of how dare anyone suggest they cut this figure as it means more babies starving to death. When that's the standard you get, you have no chance of saying something is wrong and we are in some cases making things worse with the attitude of if you chuck enough money at it without any checks, why it can only be doing good.

Even better, they throw other people's money around without sufficient checks.

Harperson and Dromey don't care much for other people's money and then there/s Balls and Cooper flipping homes three times, a left right pair of pairs. From each trough according to its potential to each lefty politician according to the size of their snout. From taxpayers according to the size oftheir sentimentality to organised crime and tinpots according to whatever they say. CMD is little better, FiL has a nice little earner going from pensioners according to their hypothermia to Sheffield according to the size and number of his windymills.

[BlackLabel]

Below is another cause we support - so when we're not facilitating corruption we are encouraging jihad and religious antiscience.

reuters said:

(Reuters) - A Pakistani province is rewriting school books to make them more Islamic, inserting verses on jihad, removing pictures of unveiled women and changing material on recent history, officials said on Thursday.

reuters said:

Shah said all pictures of girls without a head scarf would be removed and replaced with pictures where they were wearing a head scarf.

Another official said a physics book for teenagers would include Koranic verses regarding the creation of universe and ecosystem.

reuters said:

His provincial education department is getting $29 million from the British government this year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/30/us-Pakistan-education-idUSKBN0IJ1G820141030