Summary of the Green Paper, One World Conservatism
The scale of poverty around the world is an affront to our common humanity, and a direct threat to Britain's national interest.
From One World Conservatism: A Conservative agenda for International Development
Summary of the Argument
Our vision for international development, as in other areas of policy, is to achieve progressive aims through Conservative means. We believe we can bring to the fight against global poverty weapons and techniques that will make more of a difference to more people: a focus on aid effectiveness and value for money; an understanding of the importance of wealth creation and the means to foster it; a recognition that security is the precondition for sustainable development and hard-headed proposals to improve conflict resolution.
But the context for our plans has changed dramatically over the past year. The global downturn has shaken up rich and poor countries alike. For poor countries, it threatens to undermine the last decade of steady growth and poverty reduction. For rich countries, it puts new pressures on the budgets of individuals, households and governments. Times are tight - and nowhere more so than in Britain, where Labour’s catastrophic mismanagement of the economy has saddled us, and our children, with a heavy millstone of debt.
Any future government will have to take tough decisions to balance the books – and that means cutting back the rate of growth of government spending. The Conservative Party has made the bold pledge, even in the context of this fiscal squeeze, to increase the level of British aid. We have done so, above all, because it is morally right to do so. Cutbacks must not cost lives. That’s why, in the UK, we’ve ring-fenced the NHS budget. And this concern extends abroad, which is why we’re committed to boosting overseas aid.
Recent years have seen the end of the stale debate between the cynics who claim that all aid is wasted, and the starry-eyed idealists who think that throwing money at a problem automatically solves it. Yes, some aid in the past has been wasted or stolen. But equally, well-spent aid has worked miracles: eliminating smallpox, almost eradicating polio, supporting the Green Revolution in agriculture, helping get millions of children into school and saving millions of families from hunger and disease. The global downturn – which is a hammer blow to the world’s poorest families – makes the need for well-spent aid even more urgent. And it is clear that, in a globalised world, aid has a vital role to play in tackling many of the key challenges that Britain faces: drug-resistant diseases, migration, global conflict and instability. This is a practical as much as a moral imperative.
But we are absolutely clear that, as taxpayers feel the pinch, maintaining public support for our aid programme will require a much greater focus on performance, results and outcomes. Our bargain with taxpayers is this: in return for your contribution of hard-earned money it is our duty to spend every penny of aid effectively.
We are modern, compassionate Conservatives.We bring to this policy area an enormous determination to tackle poverty. But we understand that in the post-bureaucratic age, new approaches, enabled by new technologies and a new vision of social responsibility, are opening up new opportunities to empower individuals and communities, and boost economic growth in developing countries.
We bring a natural scepticism about government schemes. We realise that generosity and good intentions are important starting points – but that what matters is results on the ground. The international development system is crying out for exactly this combination of compassion and competence.
This Green Paper sets out how our commitment to more aid for the planet’s poorest people will be accompanied by a tough new approach to getting value for money from our aid budget.
As well as highlighting the amazing achievements of aid, we are candid and open about the difficulties and problems involved in turning money and good intentions into real outcomes on the ground. We identify both the systemic problems that beset the whole official aid industry, and the specific mistakes that Labour politicians have made in running our aid programme. And we set out how we will put these problems right, increasing British aid, while injecting a new post-bureaucratic focus on effectiveness and outcomes. Our aim is to spend more on what works, and end funding for what doesn’t.
This paper sets out the details of this new approach:
We will ensure the impartial and objective analysis of the effectiveness of British aid through an Independent AidWatchdog.
We will link aid directly to independently-audited evidence of real progress on the ground. Increasingly, we will pay ‘cash on delivery’: giving an agreed amount to a recipient government for every extra child they get into school or every extra person who receives decent healthcare. This will give British taxpayers confidence that their aid money is buying specific successful outcomes.
We will immediately review which of the 108 countries the Department for International Development currently gives aid to should continue to receive it. Our aid programme will be more focused and less scattergun. We will end aid to China, which has sufficient resources to fund its own development.
We will increase taxpayer control over the aid budget by giving everyone in the UK a say over where and how some of our aid is spent. We will create a new ‘MyAid Fund’, set initially at £40 million, through which individual British people will be able to vote on where and how to spend aid money. This will increase public understanding of, interest in and support for Britain’s aid programme - and create a clear incentive for the Department for International Development to demonstrate and improve the quality and impact of its work.
Taken together, we believe these reforms will deliver a step-change in the effectiveness of Britain’s international development effort. But on their own, they are not enough. Successful development policy is about much more than just aid. The single most important exit from the grinding poverty which characterises so much of the developing world is economic growth and trade. And the biggest cause of that poverty is conflict and dysfunctional governance. So we will reemphasise the importance of private sector led growth and wealth creation as the only path to prosperity. And we will do more to help poor countries put in place the building blocks of development: property rights; effective public services; access to global markets; stability, security and the rule of law.
Capitalism and development was Britain’s gift to the world. Today we have an opportunity to renew that gift by helping poor countries kick-start growth and development. The reward will be clear: a better life for millions of people, and a safer, more prosperous world for Britain.