Watchdog rates UK government ‘inadequate’ in aid review after £4 billion reduction
23 June, 2021
Britain’s aid watchdog has rated the UK government “inadequate” in three reviews of its aid programmes.
The federal government faced heavy criticism after announcing £4 billion ($5.66bn) of cuts which it said were non permanent and necessary given Britain's record degrees of borrowing through the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, a written report published by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact said the federal government didn't implement its recommendations in three separate aid reviews.
The ICAI vowed to keep to monitor aid programmes and needed a renewed give attention to transparency and accountability.
ICAI’s chief commissioner Dr Tamsyn Barton said she was concerned at the government’s insufficient engagement with the watchdog.
“On the main one hand, we have seen impressive improvements therefore of ICAI’s engagement with organisations delivering UK aid,” she said.
“However, we've also observed that the turbulence created by Covid-19 and two associated processes of major cuts to programmes, together with the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the Department for International Development, have set back progress.
“A cause for concern in this context has been a decrease in open engagement in the follow-up process.
“While it can be that is a result of overload at an exceptionally busy time, transparency is key to learning and given the increased give attention to ICAI’s role in enabling UK aid to learn and improve, it really is more important than ever before."
The ISAI re-examined three of its reviews - 'How UK aid learns', 'Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative' and 'The changing nature of UK assist in Ghana' - to determine progress on implementing its recommendations.
“They [the UK government] have held back the implementation of suggestions intended to improve the effectiveness and impact of government interventions and to assure taxpayers of the value for the money of UK aid spending,” the report said. It
The report rated the government's progress as “inadequate”.
“The follow-up review mainly covered actions taken by the UK government to handle ICAI recommendations during the calendar year 2020, an interval of enormous change in the UK aid landscape,” the watchdog said.
“The pandemic triggered a worldwide humanitarian crisis in response to that your UK government recommitted a complete of £1.39bn from its aid budget towards the response.
“At the same time, lockdown measures and restrictions on travel all over the world severely damaged the delivery of aid programmes, as did an unprecedented in-year cut of £712 million in planned expenditure after a sharp drop in UK gross national income.”
In November the federal government announced its decision to cut support for international development programmes from 0.7 to 0.5 % of Britain's national income.
The ICAI said these cuts, twinned with the merger of both departments last September, “contributed to deep uncertainty about the context for implementing ICAI’s recommendations”.
It outlined how responses to ICAI requests were “sometimes slow and information needed as a way to assess progress on suggestions was often not forthcoming”, contrasting with an increase of transparent responses in previous years.
Andrew Mitchell, a former international development minister, previously labelled the reduction as "a betrayal" and said the aid cuts were "potentially illegal”.
He said Britain was cutting support for programmes that included the supply of clean water, treatment for HIV-Aids and food programmes.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com
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