Does the cut in aid mean that the UK doesn’t care about global poverty? 

Amid the economic emergency so starkly presented by the Chancellor this week, one issue alone has provoked all five former Prime Ministers to protest: the cut in the foreign aid budget. Only this measure, a reduction from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of GNI which will save £4 billion per annum, caused a minister to resign. Andrew Mitchell, a former International Development Secretary (and contributor to TheArticle) warned that the cut would be responsible for “100,000 preventable deaths, mainly among children”. 

The great and the good are already lining up to denounce Boris Johnson for what David Cameron called “today’s decision to break our promise”. He claims that the 0.7 figure, a United Nations benchmark, gave a positive answer to the questions “do we care, do we act, do we lead”. By implication, therefore, abandoning this commitment means that “Global Britain” does not care about global poverty. 

Why has the former PM signalled that he will “go to war” on this question? Why has the British establishment focused its outrage on this issue rather than, say, the predicted rise in unemployment to 2.6 million? The cynical answer to these questions is that foreign aid enables rich people to feel good about their wealth. It is the collective equivalent of individual charity and it salves our national conscience. By the same token, any resiling from the somewhat arbitrary figure decreed by the UN a is an opportunity for righteous indignation. 

There is nothing wrong with giving to those less fortunate than oneself — indeed, there is a great deal that is right about it. What one might call the Good Samaritan instinct runs deep and is ultimately grounded in enlightened self-interest: love thy neighbour as thyself. 

But the most influential acts of charity and philanthropy are those of individuals, not governments. Eglantyne Jebb founded Save the Children after World War One to relieve famine among the nations we had just defeated; she went on to draft the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, a pioneering document in the history of human rights. As Ian Linden recently wrote, the Bill Gates Foundation alone spends more on aid than most countries, while mainly American private philanthropic foundations together contribute $150 billion a year, dwarfing the $34 billion donated by the US government last year. 

This means that state aid comparisons between countries only give part of the overall picture. How, though, does the United Kingdom compare with our friends, neighbours and allies? Last year, the UK was near the top of the table, both in Europe and globally, being the only large country to fulfil the UN target of 0.7 per cent. The only countries that exceeded the target, such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden, were much smaller and richer per capita. Germany was on 0.6 per cent, France on 0.44 per cent and others were even lower. The US gave just 0.16 per cent, a figure surpassed by China, which claims to give 0.36 per cent. Of course, international development may mean very different things under very different political systems. Chinese aid has few conditions on governance, but insists on support for Beijing’s political aims. Assistance offered by Islamic regimes may be tied to religious goals.

However we look at the global picture, the UK comes out well. Even when the cuts announced this week are implemented, the British will still be among the most generous aid donors in the world — even assuming that other countries do not also cut their aid budgets. Not only is the new 0.5 per cent figure provisional, to be increased once the impact of the Covid crisis has passed, but it leaves out of account the contribution made by UK-based charities, raising about £10 billion a year, much of which goes abroad. Thousands of our young people volunteer to work in poorer countries. While it is hard to quantify the total contribution made by the British to the developing world, it is safe to say that it far exceeds the official figure. There is also reason to think that we are more careful than others about how our aid is spent, thanks to the vigilance of the much-maligned British press. 

None of this is to say that we should be smug, still less that we should not care about the cuts that Rishi Sunak has just announced. We can be sure that the decision was not taken lightly, if only because the Conservative manifesto did promise to maintain the 0.7 figure, which is indeed enshrined in law. Only a genuine national emergency, described by the Chancellor as the largest fall in the size of the economy for three centuries, could justify such a drastic step. 

Justified, however, it almost certainly is. The test of this will be whether the economy turns out to be as badly scarred by the pandemic and its accompanying prophylaxis as the Treasury fears. There are some signs that this year has accelerated trends that were already in train, which may lead to temporary disruption but in the medium term will create growth. Healthcare and logistics are just two sectors that have been boosted, while hospitality and travel have suffered grievously. The overall balance is obviously negative, but the clouds may prove to have a silver lining. The recovery has already begun and it may happen faster than the “dismal science” predicts. In the meantime, we must concentrate on making our leaner aid budget go even further. Ministers should be held to account about how taxpayers’ money is spent just as strictly abroad as at home. 

There is certainly no reason why we British should not hold our heads high. Notwithstanding the Covid crisis, the UK has been and will continue to be a leader in development aid. And global poverty is falling, both in absolute and relative terms. The great and good may grumble, but our conscience is clear.