Matthew Sinclair

Solving the government’s aid conundrum

Earlier this week, Jonathan Jones reported on the problems facing the government on international development spending.  Their plan to increase the DFID budget is deeply unpopular. Today we’ve released a new YouGov poll that sheds a lot more light on the situation, and suggests a way out whereby the government can still fund their most prized objectives but take the heat out of public anger on the issue.

The first thing to understand is that the public doesn’t just resent any money being spent on international development. Freezing the budget is significantly more popular – with 69 per cent support and 12 per cent opposed – than scrapping it outright – with 43 per cent support and 33 per cent opposed.  People strongly support giving aid to developing countries when it can directly save lives after a natural disaster, with 81 per cent agreeing and just 12 per cent disagreeing.

Their opposition to aid is founded on very legitimate concerns, there are specific areas people want to see cut. 83 per cent don’t want us to be giving aid to countries with large, successful economies. India is the biggest single recipient of British aid but their government could easily redirect about a third of their space programme budget or a fifth of one per cent of their overall budget to cover it. If Indian politicians choose not to spend on the objectives covered by British aid, we can try to persuade them otherwise instead of stepping in with our own money.

70 per cent don’t want to give aid to countries that repress their people or have a poor human rights record. When we are writing cheques (or providing “Budget Support” in the International Development jargon) to a Rwandan government that the Metropolitan Police recently

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