As a result, foreign aid spending is forecasted to drop from £15.3 billion, or 0.58 per cent of GNI, in 2023 to £13.6 billion, or 0.50 per cent of GNI, in 2024. That is a fall of £1.7 billion. The exact figure depends on the size of the economy this year.
I very much hope you mean this desultory drop is too little as any overall expenditure figure above zero is too high.
An aid budget tied to the size of the economy is tantamount to telling civil servants to burn a given quantity of money.
Much better to set rules to govern policy like, e.g., any country that demands reparations for slavery is automatically ineligible for UK aid.
Since we are importing many diversity contributors whose only contributions to society are their hue, their desire to kill us or the clap via little girls we should include part of welfare spending, the police budget and NHS budget in the figure for aid. Perhaps rename it “overseas and domestic aid”…
Put TMB in charge of overseas aid!
Perhaps you could rename foreign aid as bribes.
And offer a payment straight to the local dictator’s Swiss bank account AFTER he does what you want??
“Forecasted”?
Government is for doing things collectively that we can’t do individually. We can all give foreign aid individually therefore government shouldn’t do it. QED.
People are poor because they’re unproductive, or their output is o insufficient value. How exactly do you make people less poor by bunging money at their kleptocratic leaders to salt away in Zurich? Or by giving Indians bogs, or Africans water pumps, which they immediately sell for ready cash?
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and he feeds himself for life. Until he sells the rod for a couple of quid, and then starts pestering you for fish again.
13.6 billion is still more than half a black hole.
Abolish the lot, as per dearieme’s suggestion.
Isn’t foreign aid a bit, you know, colonialist?
Is it possible to have negative foreign aid ?
@Otto
Yes. They’re called migrants.
Norman,
We now know if you want a man to fish you need to give him a mosquito net.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2222873-people-are-using-mosquito-nets-for-fishing-and-it-works-too-well/
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will understand why some people find golf exciting.