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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/18/the-guardian-view-on-international-aid-less-fury-more-light
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| The Guardian view on international aid: less fury, more light The Guardian view on international aid: less fury, more light | |
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| The assaults on Britain’s international development budget and the parallel assault on salaries that some charities pay their chief executives are being merged into a single weapon of attack. The aim is to unpick the legal commitment to dedicating 0.7% of GDP to aid after the next election. Some media organisations have always been hostile to any attempt to support the development of poorer countries; but the attacks of the past month have reached extraordinary depths. And, while not all the claims are justified, some of them are. The voluntary sector has to do more to get out and explain why its chief executives and other senior officers are worth paying four or five times more than the median wage, and at the same time charities need to develop a culture of openness about projects that work, and the ones that don’t. | The assaults on Britain’s international development budget and the parallel assault on salaries that some charities pay their chief executives are being merged into a single weapon of attack. The aim is to unpick the legal commitment to dedicating 0.7% of GDP to aid after the next election. Some media organisations have always been hostile to any attempt to support the development of poorer countries; but the attacks of the past month have reached extraordinary depths. And, while not all the claims are justified, some of them are. The voluntary sector has to do more to get out and explain why its chief executives and other senior officers are worth paying four or five times more than the median wage, and at the same time charities need to develop a culture of openness about projects that work, and the ones that don’t. |
| Pay for senior staff in the charitable sector has often been open to criticism: it is always jarring to see a charity appealing for donations from members of the public – many of them not that well off themselves – and then to learn that top staff in that charity are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is a disconnect in perceptions: while charity appeals to the generosity of ordinary people, some charities are multimillion-pound organisations that play a global role in developing and delivering aid and lobbying governments. | Pay for senior staff in the charitable sector has often been open to criticism: it is always jarring to see a charity appealing for donations from members of the public – many of them not that well off themselves – and then to learn that top staff in that charity are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is a disconnect in perceptions: while charity appeals to the generosity of ordinary people, some charities are multimillion-pound organisations that play a global role in developing and delivering aid and lobbying governments. |
| There is a defence, as the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society argued last year after the Sun picked up on its accounts showing that half its income was spent on staff costs. Most of its 2,500 staff work on the frontline with very vulnerable people. The great majority of charities – like the inspiring winners of the Guardian’s charity awards last week – are small and work in their local communities to deal with particular problems, and pay little more than the average wage. The big charities argue that they pay their bosses broadly in line with other organisations of a similar size, and that their overall pay bill is falling. | There is a defence, as the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society argued last year after the Sun picked up on its accounts showing that half its income was spent on staff costs. Most of its 2,500 staff work on the frontline with very vulnerable people. The great majority of charities – like the inspiring winners of the Guardian’s charity awards last week – are small and work in their local communities to deal with particular problems, and pay little more than the average wage. The big charities argue that they pay their bosses broadly in line with other organisations of a similar size, and that their overall pay bill is falling. |
| The question of aid effectiveness, the second prong of the current attack, is even more contested. As the Guardian found during its rural development project in Katine, north-east Uganda, doing good development aid – as opposed to emergency aid – is a slow and complex business that involves multiple players. It is about identifying need and securing local buy-in, engaging with local leaders and politicians, taking two steps forwards and sometimes two steps backwards as well. And even then results may not be what had been foreseen, and often depend on external factors that cannot be predicted. There are important and difficult questions, too, about the best methods of development, such as the importance of security, and the choice of priorities between supporting economic development or providing health facilities. | The question of aid effectiveness, the second prong of the current attack, is even more contested. As the Guardian found during its rural development project in Katine, north-east Uganda, doing good development aid – as opposed to emergency aid – is a slow and complex business that involves multiple players. It is about identifying need and securing local buy-in, engaging with local leaders and politicians, taking two steps forwards and sometimes two steps backwards as well. And even then results may not be what had been foreseen, and often depend on external factors that cannot be predicted. There are important and difficult questions, too, about the best methods of development, such as the importance of security, and the choice of priorities between supporting economic development or providing health facilities. |
| These are all big and legitimate areas for debate. So is the argument about the significance of Britain’s national interest. But it is not the debate that is happening. The international development secretary, Priti Patel, grandstands her scepticism about aid – sometimes, it seems, about the very principle of it – and is cheered on by her allies in the media. The NGOs that often rely on Department for International Development contracts for their survival keep their heads down for fear of being named and shamed. Development matters. So stop the name calling and start a constructive conversation about how to do it better. | These are all big and legitimate areas for debate. So is the argument about the significance of Britain’s national interest. But it is not the debate that is happening. The international development secretary, Priti Patel, grandstands her scepticism about aid – sometimes, it seems, about the very principle of it – and is cheered on by her allies in the media. The NGOs that often rely on Department for International Development contracts for their survival keep their heads down for fear of being named and shamed. Development matters. So stop the name calling and start a constructive conversation about how to do it better. |