As Britain’s Conservative party holds its first conference as a majority government, it is worth reflecting that its record on international development has been impressive. One of New Labour’s great legacies was the prioritisation of aid but it was the Tories who claimed the momentous prize of reaching the historic commitment of spending 0.7% of the nation’s GNI on aid.
This achievement deserves plaudits and campaigners need to work now to ensure that it is a permanent feature of Britain’s DNA, as well as to press other countries, especially major economies like France and Germany, to live up to their obligations – as I have written previously, the idea that we will one day be able to reduce our global spending is fallacious.
But there is a flipside to this focus on aid – a serious risk of “aidwash”.
“Greenwash” is the word given to efforts by businesses to give the impression of being environmentally friendly and socially responsible while not fundamentally changing harmful core business practices. It generally expresses itself in charitable spending, basically aid projects, accompanied by lots of back-slapping.
It’s a far cry from what is ultimately needed: a new kind of business model enabling inclusive and sustainable growth. And the real danger of greenwash is that it (often deliberately) diverts attention from the fundamentals.
And so it appears to be with UK aid. While the government basks in its 0.7% glory, it is staunchly opposing some of the basic steps that are needed to make a fairer world.
Take the long struggle to change the way we help countries emerge from unsustainable and crippling debt. A historic vote at the UN last month finally called for new rules to guide sovereign debt restructuring – but the major creditors, including the UK, voted against. This is just the latest in a systematic attempt by the UK and a handful of other countries to delay necessary change.
Then there is the arms trade, one of the vilest blights on our chances of global progress, on which the present government appears to be over-relaxed. A UK government report released in June showed how hundreds of millions of pounds in loans have gone to the governments of countries like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia to enable them to buy UK arms.
Meanwhile, the government has made it easier to export arms to countries with poor human rights records, reversing legislation brought in by the previous administration. An economy in trouble is no excuse to roll back basic standards – the UK is still vastly rich compared with most other countries.
Or take attempts to push forward global cooperation to make tax rules beneficial to the poorest countries. While the government has certainly bowed to pressure to support moves at the OECD to reduce tax avoidance, the impact on the poorest countries will be marginal, which is why almost all the world’s countries have been pushing for a new, truly global body to look at tax issues.
But the UK not only opposed this obvious improvement in global governance, it pulled out all the old-fashioned tricks to prevent it happening, making growling phone calls to ambassadors and sending threatening emails to civil society leaders.
It is all very well to have intense policy debates, but when you find yourself adopting bullying tactics, you need to have a hard think about whether you are acting in the global interest.
And on aid itself, the excitement over reaching the target for the quantity of aid has allowed the government to resist pressure for the quality of aid to be improved as well. The push for country ownership enshrined for a decade in the Paris Agenda on Aid Effectiveness appears to have been forgotten in a push to put short-term results above all else. We need results, of course, but not at the expense of the long-term development of health and education systems.
All in all, the leadership being shown by the UK government on aid, in a difficult moment politically and economically, is remarkable, and to the immense credit of those involved, from the prime minister down.
But aid is only one of the many things that rich countries need to do to support international poverty reduction and sustainable development. The acclamation of the sustainable development goals last month only emphasises the range of measures required.
The UK government should be a leader in the next set of development finance challenges. Aidwash, while tempting, should be resisted.
As we approach December’s Paris conference, at which the future of the world’s climate will be in the balance, let us not allow the same approach to hold sway, whereby aidwashing promises of “climate finance” (which I have dubbed climate bribery) distract attention from the over-consumption that is the real issue at hand if we are going to keep our world safe.
