Ian Birrell

Big charity

The aid business has grown fat. It’s time there was proper scrutiny

issue 18 February 2012

The aid business has grown fat. It’s time there was proper scrutiny

Such a simple question: should Oxfam spend a couple of hundred pounds a month opening up the swimming pool at its guesthouse in one of the nicer parts of Nairobi? It was posed by Duncan Green, the group’s head of research, on his blog, and provoked a revealing bout of navel-gazing in the aid industry.

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