So desperate is the UK to reach its 0.7 per cent of GNI target for foreign aid, it has been literally throwing money away on consultants to provide ‘services’ to relatively wealthy countries. In an excellent series of articles in the UK’s Telegraph, we can see the extent of these excesses and follies. It seems that when poverty is not available as a justification for giving aid, the standard fallback is climate change which can be used to justify just about any form of expenditure in any country.
Here are some good quotes from the series of articles:
- the UK’s independent commission on aid impact is staffed largely by aid consultants, hence the consultancy probe has been delayed to “work out a way of dealing with the conflict of interest”
- a scheme promoting tourism in Iceland’s national park, and a hotel training waiters in the tourist destination of Barbados
- the scheme has made millionaires of so-called ‘poverty barons’ (at least the Robber barons left some good infrastructure)
- the EU spends about half its aid budget of £10 billion on middle and higher income countries – even though Britain believes those countries are too wealthy to merit support;
- Russia, with more than 100 billionaires, was given £40 million, including £240,000 for an arts project in St Petersburg. The results of the project entitled: “Listening to Architecture, Composing Spaces” will be presented at the St Petersburg Architectural Biennale in 2013 and at a conference at the Hermitage Museum in 2014.
- Iceland receives about £4.2 million including £400,000 for a scheme to promote tourism in Katla national park; while Georgia is earmarked £80 million including £400,000 for a mayoral project in Tbilisi, which gives the capital responsibility for organising “Sustainable Energy days”. Iceland, a country officially wealthier than the UK and which refuses to re-pay £2.3 billion owed to Britain in the credit crunch, receives funding for at least three projects including promoting tourism in a national park, and Croatia received £120 million in 2011 while the west African state of Mali, whose population is four times the size but 20 times poorer, was given £13.5 million from the EU.
In something that must have Adam Smith rolling in his grave, we discover
The managing director of the London-based development consultancy Adam Smith International (ASI), which gets most of its income from DFID, paid himself a salary and dividends totalling almost £1.3 million in 2010.
Then we have the Bahamas
In that well-known pit of misery, the Bahamas, a DFID-funded project has assessed climate change impact. In Barbados, British consultants work on a DFID-funded aid project, the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre, where the average consultant salary and living allowance is £180,000.
At the event, I spoke to Mr Howell about aid in the Caribbean. “We [Britain] give 9% of the Caribbean Development Bank budget, but we get 14% of the spend,” he said. “It’s a good return on investment.”
But, I said, the Caribbean wasn’t poor. “There are always elements of poverty in any country,” he said. “When I was in [Washington] DC, there was poverty a few blocks from the White House.” So far, DFID has restrained itself from starting an aid programme to the USA.
As the networking part of the session began, the consultants started swapping business cards and lifestyle stories: the pools, the $2000-a-day “expert” who demanded (successfully) that a new Mercedes be shipped to East Timor for him. But others were more grounded.
“I cringed when Graham Hand said that about the money, particularly this week,” said one consultant. “I hope nobody from the Telegraph was here tonight.”
So, dear readers, climate change and foreign aid are a neat form of rent seeking – surely the type conspiracy of which Adam Smith warned?
the pay was good at the world bank too. some of their old staffers said the World Bank’s real motto was fighting global poverty one new staff member at a time.
Jim Rose
23 Sep 12 at 7:48 pm
… All of which proves the science of AGW is complete bunkum, of course.
LacqueredStudio
23 Sep 12 at 8:56 pm
I’ve seen this shit first hand in countries like Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan. Whole communities of expats with inflated tax free salaries, driving shiny new 4wds, doing ‘development consulting’ for UNESCO or some other totally useless shite. When you have German microbreweries opening up in Bishkek selling glasses of pilsener at a cost equal to several days’ wages for the average Kyrgyz local, you know the gravy train has gotten out of control!
One couple I met there whose Toyota land cruiser and tax free six figure salaries were funded by the EU must have known the gig was almost up and had made arrangements for the next boondoggle in Madagascar. Apparently the hardship payments were a nice little earner there.
Papachango
23 Sep 12 at 8:59 pm
LacqueredStudio – it proves nothing about AGW science. It proves we spend a lot of money on aid and climate science. Most of which seems to be wasted.
Samuel J
23 Sep 12 at 9:17 pm
Reminds me of an international Innovation conference attended by lots of govt reps, multinationals, UNESCO, OECD, certain university heads, McKinsey, etc. One of the speakers pointed out that the governments represented had the power to regulate the economy and the ability to tell allies what it planned to regulate. So Innovation got defined there as the plans to regulate to benefit all the major players at the conference. Classic rent seeking.
I get that a lot when I describe what is really going on in education globally. “Are you saying there’s a conspiracy?” No, the documents say they are coordinating and for this reason and it is classic rent seeking behavior. Economic benefits by pushing dirigisme.
Somewhere someone created the idea it is perfectly safe to conspire with government officials with impunity. If you get caught, you just yell conspiracy theorist at whoever caught you.
Rent seeking-it’s what always happens when governments assume direction of a significant portion of an economy. Please do not confuse this classic behavior with English murder mysteries.
Robin
23 Sep 12 at 9:22 pm
what science?
please point it out.
perhaps you mean the IPPC AR4 which is mostly written by WWF and Greanpeace?
Do you mean Steigs total trash in his Antarctica 2009 paper?
Perhaps Mann’s hockey sticks?
lol
Will
23 Sep 12 at 10:26 pm
My demands would be a little less, like 2 cartons of local beer per week, air conditioning and hot water, so if anyone is listening I am available.
kelly liddle
23 Sep 12 at 11:48 pm
I think those who are on the foreign aid teat are immoral. The income disparity between these Government funded leaches and the local popular makes the USA look like Utopia.
Samuel J
24 Sep 12 at 5:16 am
Oh Gee, so our “poor” include Ross Garnaut and Tim Flannery?
Jazza
24 Sep 12 at 7:23 am
What is the EU but a bloated bureaucracy. Biggest mistake Europe ever made. The gift that keeps on giving. The sooner the EU is disbanded, the better the rest of the world will be. Billions of dollars wasted in a time when the world is heading for a colossal recession due to the massive debt in major economies and no end in sight.
mags
24 Sep 12 at 8:03 am
Don’t worry too much mags – the EU will crumble in the next few years. An edifice built on sand and self interest will sooner or later topple.
Winston SMITH
24 Sep 12 at 8:28 am
Winston you are back! By mistake?
Helen Armstrong
24 Sep 12 at 8:37 am
An edifice built on sand and self interest will sooner or later topple.
Pyramids ?
Tapdog
24 Sep 12 at 8:46 am
It shows AGW has enormous attendant scams; it lends weigh to the claim that the AGW scientists are just in it for the scam; which isn’t true; some are genuine nutters.
It sets a context of chicanery and dubious values for AGW; which is confirmed with EVERY scientific contribution to the ediface of AGW science; of course some of the shonks are more obvious than others; Cook and Lewandowsky, for instance, deserve a special place in hell.
cohenite
24 Sep 12 at 9:18 am
A variation on this theme is the story in today’s Australian about how most of the money allocated to help disadvantaged Aboriginal communities is mopped up by bureaucrats, consultants and infrastructure for same.
Gravy trains premised on ‘helping the poor’ don’t vary much in substance, only the excuse for lining up at the trough is periodically updated to reflect the issue du jour.
johanna
24 Sep 12 at 9:30 am
Helen, by popular acclaim, Winston has decided to declare his presence again amongst us.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
24 Sep 12 at 9:59 am
That is, Bob has taken a back seat.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
24 Sep 12 at 10:01 am
My alter ego has taken over…
*sob*
Oh well.
Tapdog, that’s a good point. However it would appear that several of the larger pyramids were built by having a small pyramid on a hill, then continuing the pyramid down the hill by cutting steps into it. (Which I didn’t know about.)
The statement was made more as a generalisation than a fact in every case.
Helen, I got nagged into resurrecting Winston.
Winston Smith
24 Sep 12 at 8:18 pm