The UK\u2019s efforts to meet its development aid goals are risking value for money, MPs warned today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A report on the Department for International Development\u2019s 2011\/12 accounts found that \u00a3450m of spending planned for 2012 had been moved to 2011 to meet the aid target for that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department also increased the value of payments on other projects by \u00a3130m to enable it to meet its goal for the year, according to the Commons international development select committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DFID\u2019s budget is due for its largest raise to date this year as the government bids to increase its aid spending from 0.56% of gross national income to 0.7%. But the MPs found that it faced a \u2018major challenge\u2019 in spending this increase cost-effectively when it was cutting administration costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Committee chair Sir Malcolm Bruce said: \u2018We are worried that pressure to meet targets to increase overseas development aid could lead to DFID making poor spending decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: \u2018The department should be prepared to miss aid targets where there are delays or cancellations to its planned projects and it does not have good value alternatives.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MPs also highlighted the department\u2019s increased reliance on multilateral organisations to channel aid spending. Almost two-thirds of aid spent in 2011\/12 went through multilateral bodies, continuing the \u2018major change\u2019 in recent years that has seen the DFID reduce direct aid to recipient country\u2019s governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018DFID argues that the change is not a reflection of its need to spend money quickly, but a result of the reduced need for budget support in countries with rising tax bases and improved financial management, as well as its focus on fragile states,\u2019 they noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they warned that multilaterals had high costs and \u2018too often limited effectiveness\u2019 and said the department should instead explore greater use of local non-governmental organisations and budget support for specific sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A DFID spokesman stressed that the department\u2019s 2011 Multilateral Aid Review had given, for the first time, a \u2018rigorous assessment\u2019 of the value for money it received from multilateral agencies, with funding stopped for poor performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018We agree with the IDC that we must continue to assess multilaterals for efficiency which is why we are reviewing all our multilateral agencies\u2019 performance this year,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In their report, MPs were critical of the DFID\u2019s \u2018contradictory\u2019 approach towards aid for middle-income countries, noting that while it was\u00a0planning to end grant aid to India in 2015, spending in Nigeria and Pakistan was due to grow \u2018rapidly\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018As expenditure on middle-income countries increases, it is even more important that decision-making is rational and consistent. We recommend that the department establish and make public the criteria it will use to inform decisions of when and how it should cease to provide aid,\u2019 they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They did, however, welcome the rapid increase in professional advisers employed by the DFID and the increased proportion of its staff working overseas. But they still had concerns about whether there were enough staff with the right skills to oversee how UK aid was spent by multilaterals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","_important_terms":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ub_ctt_via":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[100263],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Ziga Breznik","author_link":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/authors\/"},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Ziga Breznik","author_link":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/authors\/"},"featured_img":null,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ziga Breznik","author_link":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/authors\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News Archive<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News Archive<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 years ago","modified":"Updated 2 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 10, 2022","modified":"Updated on January 10, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 10, 2022 3:04 pm","modified":"Updated on January 10, 2022 3:04 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506406"},{"taxonomy":"table_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.publicfinanceinternational.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/table_tags?post=506406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}