Chancellor cuts International Aid budget

I don't suppose that anyone bothered to read the links I posted earlier?

I did MaizieD!

Not sure my little brain totally grasped it all but I do read stuff cleverer folks than me recommend in the hope that something sticks!

My own thoughts on foreign aid are pretty much summed up by ‘we shouldn’t be sending money to countries with space programmes’.

Keep educating!

No of course not Ellan why would I?

I am all for helping other countries who are genuinely struggling but I get furious when I read about India, with their own space programme, getting aid and China, who are hardly on the breadline. Projects like Nigeria receiving £5m to create their own 'Spice Girls' group really takes the biscuit. We have our own serious financial issues and personally I would have liked to have seen Rishi trim the foreign aid budget more than he has.

I am in favour of helping counties with severe problems in feeding, housing and educating their people, but I feel a complete review of the criteria and where that assistance is given is long overdue.

Having said that, the way Brexit is now going it may be that Britain will not be in a position to give aid to any other country over the next few years.

Let us not forget that the use of food banks by families is rocketing in Britain and with unemployment rising rapidly many of those food banks are now starting to struggle.

I did MaizieD Thank you for posting them.

I wish people would read the posts that come before them in a thread, and also take the time to understand what foreign aid really is. The constant complaints about food banks, charity and space programs are very ill informed.

The "Spice Girls in Nigeria" thing was really about a program to support young women and girls in Ethiopia.

FORMER Labour foreign secretary David Miliband has come under fire after it emerged he is paid almost £800,000 a year by a taxpayer-funded charity for the poor. He heads a team of 12 highly paid executives at the anti-poverty International Rescue Committee (IRC). Mr Miliband, 55, who was the scourge of "immoral" fatcats when he ran for Labour leader in 2010, is president of the organisation, which gets £50million annually from UK taxpayers.

Do posters who are against cutting the foreign aid budget think its OK for the charity bigwigs to get such high salaries, perhaps these hyprocrites who run these charities should take a pay cut. It's big business running a charity these days, bosses and staff lining their own pockets and enjoying the highlife of course they don't want it to end.

Well. Thanks for this info Firecracker123. Thought provoking.

Totally agree with your last paragraph Firecracker123

Firecracker123, I could not agree more with your comments at 08:29 this morning regarding the salaries that heads of charities receive. It is "totally out of order" that they should be receiving such amounts when they rely on unpaid volunteers to run the frontline of the charities, and those they serve often have little or no income at all.

For those who dismiss British people who rely on food banks and overnight charity shelters for their existence, then I believe those people are as much in need of "aid" as any person living overseas.

The British homeless and food bank situation will get much worse in the coming year, or perhaps even year's, due to the combination of the Covid crisis and Brexit. That will require the attention of the government in equality to overseas aid, and if in that overseas aid has to be reduced for the needs of this nation, so be it.

Do posters who are against cutting the foreign aid budget think its OK for the charity bigwigs to get such high salaries, perhaps these hyprocrites who run these charities should take a pay cut.

It's not got anything to do with foreign aid, but for the record, I don't care if the charities pay their executives high salary. When it comes to salaries, you get what you pay for. I have personal experience of charities run by people who are well meaning but couldn't run a tombola stand. Pay people what they are worth and you get the returns.

People who use food banks need respect from the government and an opportunity to share in the wealth of this nation. They don't need charity or "aid" and suggesting they do is sidelining them. You may think we are strapped for cash, but we always manage to find enough for a new aircraft carrier.

Quizqueen. Totally agree. I think that Overseas Aid should
be a help in these circumstances and to set up family planning centres. How can the world's overpopulation problem be solved when some poor countries produce so many children? Unfair that they are born into overcrowded countries and continue the circle.

I agree alwegrias I have spent most of my working life in the charity sector in this country and it is frequently badly run. Organisations which rely too heavily on volunteers generally fail.

Sorry alegrias, my phone struggles with your username

No worries Galaxy, I've been called worse.

Conservative MP David Davies said: 'It is extraordinary that charitable organisations and charity bosses are giving themselves bigger pay rises than some people receive in their annual salary.

'When we put money in a box for a good cause, it is without realising how much of the money is being used to fund the enormous, eye-watering pay rises for bosses of these organisations.'

Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, said: 'I would like to see at the point of giving, whether that's in the street or online, every charity clearly display the percentage of every pound which goes to the good cause and what goes to administration.
Copied from the Daily Mail

I decided many moons ago to not give to big national/international charities.

I donate to small local causes and our local hospice.

I am sorry but no matter how you dress it up the UK should not be sending Aid to
China the 2nd biggest economic power on this planet?????

If the powers that be decide to do so then that should have the Kahunas to call it what it actually is a whacking great backhander

I agree that our contribution to foreign aid should be cut.

There are many interesting points raised for and against, but the way I see it is that while we have homeless people sleeping on the streets, and people using foodbanks - they should be our ultimate priority for helping.

Why do we give funds to both China and India? Totally ridiculous, in my opinion.

Sort out poverty in our own country first.

It's not got anything to do with foreign aid, but for the record, I don't care if the charities pay their executives high salary.

It has because the Government gives money to some charities to carry out work on their behalf.
Charities are big business and yes, they have to attract good people to run them, but a lot of them are 'fat cats' and corrupt as well.

They don't take these jobs for their charitable ideals. Those on the ground carrying out the actual work are often in despair at the way in which these charity bosses perform.

The Overseas Aid Budget should be much better targeted and overseen as much of the money does get diverted from the purposes for which it was intended and disappears into the hands of corrupt officials along the way.

www.gov.uk/government/news/save-the-children-uk-can-bid-for-government-funding-again-after-improving-safeguarding-standards

One reason why there should be more scrutiny.

It has been reported also that foreign aid money (not necessarily from the UK) has found its way into Swiss bank accounts.
Jordan has come first in a list of countries that appear to have siphoned huge amounts of foreign aid into offshore bank accounts.
The resource-poor Middle Eastern country, which is hosting about two million Syrian refugees, received £2.13 billion in foreign aid in 2018-19 including £110 million from Britain, one of its biggest donors
An analysis by the World Bank, however, found that $3.13 billion was moved out of the country and into offshore accounts, mostly in tax havens such as Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands, over a ten-year period that coincided with a rise in foreign donations. The report’s authors estimated that an average of 7.5 per cent of the aid handed to any given country was stolen by its elites

Jassar al Tahat, Amman | Hannah Lucinda Smith, Istanbul
Tuesday May 19 2020, 12.01am, The Times

In the meantime, the Syrian refugees suffer.

and

The report’s authors estimated that an average of 7.5 per cent of the aid handed to any given country was stolen by its elites

Which means that 93% of it is reaching its target. This isn't even a 'glass half full or half empty' situation. It's glass nearly full to the brim with a bit spilling out. Shame on the mean mindedness of people who make this sort of statement an excuse for withdrawing help from the poorest and weakest people on this planet.

And if my links have been read the reader will see that part of our aid budget is devoted to measures to eliminate corruption (because it aint just going to go away on its own).

It would be interesting if aid agencies were to devote some international funding to the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the UK. Heaven knows, our own government isn't going to do it, are they? Despite the fact that we were, supposedly, the 5th richest country in the world. How much outcry in other nations would there be about the fact that we have a nuclear deterrent, etc. etc?

Oh, and for all the smuggies, the UK is reckoned to be the most corrupt countries in the world.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/roberto-saviano-britain-corrupt-mafia-hay-festival-a7054851.html

Sorry, maths at fault 92.5%, not 93%

Well if Roberto Saviano says so it must be true lol what a load of tripe.