Starmer gives £84 Million to Africa and Middle East

You may as well throw the money down the drain.😲

www.itv.com/news/2024-07-17/starmer-to-host-major-european-summit-in-attempt-to-reset-eu-relations#

£84m - nowhere near enough imo. For Africa and the Middle East? Has this come out of the foreign aid budget?

What do people want? The far more wasteful Rwanda project? At least it's a far better idea to process claims at source than have these seemingly endless deaths in the channel?

Yes, Ronib from the existing foreign aid budget - and that it will be spent over three years on projects "to improve education and employment opportunities" as well as schemes to build resilience to wars and climate change.

Oreo

You may as well throw the money down the drain.😲

This.

Maybe Starmer could make a start on our NHS.

Apparently £84m over the next three years. That will go nowhere and won’t stop people coming here in boats.

Indeed GSM, and so as Oreo says, the money might as well have been thrown down the drain.

I suppose the title should really be:

Starmer redirects £84 million of existing foreign aid budget to Africa and Middle East

...if we want accuracy!

The Conservatives spent the overseas aid budget on housing asylum seekers until they made most of them illegal. I think this is a much better way of spending overseas aid.

NotSpaghetti

I suppose the title should really be:

Starmer redirects £84 million of existing foreign aid budget to Africa and Middle East

...if we want accuracy!

😆

Of course we don't want accuracy. We want indignation with a bit of xenophobia thrown in...

I was also interested in the article

"The government said it is redeploying staff from the now-scrapped Rwanda scheme to focus on a "rapid returns unit" to send people with no right to be in the UK back to their home country."

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-994929-2024-0619-203921.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-111836-2024-0619-203742.jpg

Well I've posted this before, but a refugee support lady in the UK said these are all the countries her 'clients' come from. So is Starmer going to provide education and support to all these countries?

And where is all the money to come from to house the immigrants, legal and illegal, who will continue to come to this country?

foxie48

The Conservatives spent the overseas aid budget on housing asylum seekers until they made most of them illegal. I think this is a much better way of spending overseas aid.

If not from the foreign aid budget, from where do you suggest the vast sums spent on housing and feeding asylum seekers should come?

It must be something about getting old but accuracy helps navigate the world …. So £84m is such an underspend on this project I wonder if the rest of the world would chip in?

Maybe that's what he's working on ronib?

Doubtless there will be a policy initiative in due course NotSpaghetti?

Government information dated November 2023 - to orrect the hyperbole and misinformation.

It is no longer possible, if it ever was, for a country to determine its future alone. Climate change does not respect national boundaries, nor do pandemics. Conflicts are becoming more numerous, frequent, and longer lasting. War in one country can affect security thousands of miles away. Poverty, conflict, and climate change often go hand in hand and drive flows of refugees.

We are a part of the whole, like it or not.

Our interconnectedness also has many benefits. Global trade and finance lead to growth and jobs. When we collaborate, we can create changes that ripple out across the world. And when, alongside other countries, we spend a small proportion of our income on international development, it is not only the right thing to do; it is also the wise thing to do.

Whitewavemark2

Government information dated November 2023 - to orrect the hyperbole and misinformation.

It is no longer possible, if it ever was, for a country to determine its future alone. Climate change does not respect national boundaries, nor do pandemics. Conflicts are becoming more numerous, frequent, and longer lasting. War in one country can affect security thousands of miles away. Poverty, conflict, and climate change often go hand in hand and drive flows of refugees.

We are a part of the whole, like it or not.

Our interconnectedness also has many benefits. Global trade and finance lead to growth and jobs. When we collaborate, we can create changes that ripple out across the world. And when, alongside other countries, we spend a small proportion of our income on international development, it is not only the right thing to do; it is also the wise thing to do.

That's fine if the government can ensure that the money is actually used for the proposed projects... and not syphoned off by corrupt individuals

pascal30

OK

There are two channels for ODA

Bi-lateral - where the spending is earmarked for specific projects. So an example of this would be for family planning services in Mawali.

Multi-lateral - where a number of governments/organisations pool resources for identified projects. So the U.K. government will contribute to the world bank ODA.

How kind of him ...

... and in the meantime there are veterans on the streets without housing; people unable to get GP appointments and MH care, and the disabled are left peeing in the garden and pooing in plastic bags because they are unable to pay to repair their only accessible toilet.

We've always had a Foreign Aid budget, it hasn't suddenly appeared 15 days ago.