Thread by @defencewithac

It seems International Aid is the hot topic right now so I suppose I should do a thread to at least maintain some sort of veneer of relevance for the benefit of newer followers. So here we go, /1

IA has a bunch of problems associated with it, most of which come back to the word "credibility". A lot of this is to do with the wheres and the hows of UK aid. So let's start with the where /2

For example last year the UK's biggest destination for bilateral aid was Pakistan. The same country that was keeping Bin Laden tucked away safely all those years and has its own nuclear weapons program. £305 million. /3

Number 17 on the list was India, with £108 million. This is the same India who have budgeted $1.9 billion for their space agency this financial year. If you can't see a problem with that then I'm not really sure what to say, /4

The second issue is with the how. How is the money spent? What is it focused on? The government has some vague, quite broad objectives on its website, but no clearly articulated plan of "this is what we want to achieve and this is how it will be done," /5

That's before we get into the estimated 15% ish of development money that annually gets embezzled through corruption and in many cases quite literally ends up in Swiss bank accounts. This suggests we have problems with delivery. /6

If you're going to spend around £15bn a year on aid, it is incumbent on the government to make sure the money is spent well and for most of it to end up being delivered where it matters. Advocates for aid should be advocating for better spending practices. /7

One potential option would be more delivery through 3rd party providers of suitable reputation, the people actually delivering the aid at the coal face, instead of through government organisations in the receiving country. /8

The final leg of the credibility issue goes back full circle to where. Politically it is difficult to explain why you can't fund better sheltering options for homeless people here in the UK while you can find money for aid overseas. /9

There is an instinctive, and quite natural I think, response from people here at home to question the sanity of sending billions abroad in aid, especially to dodgy/"undeserving" regimes, when there are so many problems left unaddressed back at home. /10

Personal view? Slash it in half. A fair chunk of UK aid is spent multi-laterally through organisations like the UN and some aid is still benefical. But the amounts being spent currently are absurd and difficult to justify. /11

If it seems miserly, could someone explain why Saint Arden of Kiwi land gets a free pass, despite NZ spending less than 0.3% of its GDP on International Aid? Even super progressive, super kind Canada doesn't meet that target. /12

If most of the rest of the world is going to laugh at the target and not deliver, I don't see why the UK should allow itself to be taken for a ride yet again. At some point you have to just say "no" and dig your heels in. /13

Now let's address the soft power argument, which I'm sure plenty of people are waiting to bring up. In short, I think it's largely bollocks. Could someone explain what soft power benefits the UK has derived from its aid spend to Pakistan? /14

What about Ethiopia, the second largest recipient of bilateral UK aid? Afghanistan (3rd)? Yemen (4th)? South Sudan (8th... Ha!)? I often hear the soft power argument but there seems not only to be little evidence of it, but little thought as to what soft power actually is /15

Is it derived from funding aid spending, which on the surface at least is suppose to neutral in its delivery? Or is it derived from things like the ability to speak out at the UN in support of someone, or to raise their cause at the WTO? /16

Aid, if you're going to do it, shouldn't be about soft power. Partly because I don't think it buys anywhere near as much as people think. And partly because that seems quite contrary to the spirit and true purpose of IA. /17

It also just gets under my skin a little to hear some people pontificate about aid as a humanitarian cause when they refuse to accept or endorse many of the known, much better strategies for aiding said countries. /18