In Britain the Planning Minister Yvette Cooper is married to Ed Balls at the Treasury, but no-one would call that a corrupt relationship - even though the Treasury is concerned that planning approvals are restricted to ensure that the £4 trillion said to be the "value" of Britain's existing private housing is not collapsed by a wave of new house building. Instead, in Britain, the planning system collaborates with housing developers to negotiate the subsidy of public works through "planning gain" as the price to be extracted for profitable land speculation. In contrast the twenty-first century "good practice" of public/private partnerships when manifest in the developing world are reposed as corrupt practices. We operate a grotesque double standard when it comes to development at home and abroad. Worldwrite is doing an excellent job in showing up British hypocrisy. We should be asking how much development can be achieved through negotiation, rather than cast the business of development as corrupt over there, but an expression of Gordon Brown's "prudence" over here.

Why should developing countries be given "special treatment"?

If it's good enough for UK groups to have to supply information to their grantmakers and good enough for the UK government to have to supply information to its taxpayers (NHS league tables for example) then it's good enough for developing countries to have to supply information to their donors.

(I made this point earlier, but it may have got lost in the essays)

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I think China's sentiment that it "respects African countries independent choice of the road to development" seems laudable. Am I missing something? Shouldn't African countries have autonomy, and the ability to make their own decisions about their own economy?
I am interested how Hilary Benn can oppose a country pursuing its own economic agenda to poverty alleviation. It makes me think that Hilary Benn does not see alleviation of poverty as a product of economic development, something surely to be desired; but likes the idea that Africans are kept firmly in their place with little bits of help drip fed to them by the West for which they must be cravenly grateful.
This is further underlined by Benn's insistence that aid must be tied to "building accountability and responsiveness". To whom? Again to the West who must have their pound of flesh for every measly pound they give.

There seems to be a common misapprehension underlying much of what's been said so far: that by attaching strings to aid, foreign agencies are undermining the democratic legitimacy of poor-country governments.

This point is frankly bogus. Poor countries have a free choice in their acceptance (or not) of aid. If money is dangled before them with strings attached, they can either accept it or they can say thanks, but no thanks. Until governments are compelled to accept aid, the question of 'democratic mandates' being 'undermined' simply does not arise.

I can hear the leftist comeback to this already. 'But countries *are* compelled to accept aid as a result of their dire poverty,' some will doubtless argue. But I disagree. There's a vigorous debate in the international-development community over the utility or otherwise of aid, and it would be perfectly reasonable of poor-country governments to decline it on the basis that it won't do them much long-term good.

This debate so far has ignored where the responsibility for the acceptance of aid actually lies. If rich donors want to attach conditions to their donations, that is perfectly understandable. But that doesn't mean that poor countries have to roll over and accept whatever is offered.

The idea of 'wants' as opposed to 'needs' seems to be corrupt to many in the international development.It's ok to have modest needs and modest hopes, but to have material ambitions is viewed as suspect.

If you look historically the only period when the West seemed to support a great vision for developing countries to industrialise and reach the living standards of the West was in the 1950s and early 1960s when the developing world was just becoming independent. But by the late 1960s the West was already reining in its ambitions for the developing world. OK to have ambitions in the abstract, but not in practice. Encouraging people in the developing world to have material ambitions was portrayed by Schumacher in Small is Beautiful as corrupting them.

Western NGO advocates like to support nice small local picturesque micro-enterprises, but seem to treat ambitious national infrastructure projects as inherently corrupt(village wells in, modern dams out).

I'm with Hilary Benn on this one

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2008249,00.html

Note that Mr Benn is against aid being tied to the donors' economic agendas - but "for" it being tied to poverty alleviation, evidence of democratic process, etc.

Re: accountability of community-based organisations: the whole point is that being based in the community makes them more accountable to their beneficiaries as well as their donors - the organisation would quickly lose its mandate as spokesperson for the community if it wasn't delivering (by losing members, finding 'competing' CBOs springing up, by 'takeover' from the community). In contrast, international NGOs, as Egalitarian says, do sometimes have a paternalistic approach which does not necessarily create long-term sustainable solutions. Empowering CBOs by listening to their representation of what their community needs works for the trust I work for [shrug].

I can't help wondering whether Mr Hu's offers of loans and investment from China are just a repeat of the same self-interested short-term gain approach of Western Governments 30-40 years ago ... what will happen if the loan repayments aren't met or the trade conditions can't be met?

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I'm afraid I have little time to respond to all the comments now. There is one common prejudice that strikes me though. This thread seems to confirm the suspicion raised by Ceri that the corruption discourse is emblematic of an authoritarian orthodoxy in the heart of the "aid & development" industry.

A cursory look at the petulant cries of Make Poverty History campaigners, one year after Gleneagles, to China's growing generosity to fund large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa exposes the lie behind the accountability discussion. Aid organisations and Western development institutions are only interested in accountability to donors. Chinese 'aid without strings' may wreck all the progress of the G8 deal, it was claimed.

Nowhere, bar China, is it admissable for poor countries to access foreign aid to be spent in accordance with their electoral mandate. This is how we demand accountability here in the West. So why does the corruption discussion exclude this possibility?

Both Rod Liddle and NGOs in the field like to chastise the elected governments of poor countries as corrupt or, at best, indifferent to the needs of the poorest. While Liddle suggests aid will be diverted into the pockets of cronies in government, the self-appointed Western advocates [in NGDOs, UN and World Bank] of the poor work intimately with the poor to make sure aid is spent on 'poverty reduction'. Liddle's bigoted rants against aid are far less dangerous than the charade of community development and poverty reduction partnership.

The innocuous 'poverty reduction' framework belies a regime no less destructive than the old 'structural adjustment'. The poorest of the poor are voiceless and economic development does not always benefit the poorest. There is nothing new in these comments. What is new is how the poor are used as pawns to play out Western self-loathing of affluence.

In the name of the poor, Western do-gooders have belittled the electoral process in poor countries. Local CBOs [community based organisations] or any non-governmental group are claimed to be accountable to the poor, and so we are constantly told how aid must be channelled to these unaccountable bodies directly or indirectly. It is a lie to claim that local groups are any more accountable than foreign NGOs. It is unclear how a church group or traditional chief may be democratically accountable.

On the other hand, Western governments and the International Financial Institutions IFIs hold the purse strings and ask poor countries to become 'partners' in 'poverty reduction'. The willingness of poor countries to sign up to this process is a recognition that this is the only procedure available.

The perception of corruption in poor countries has been cultivated by the 'poverty reduction' and 'community development' agendas of the aid industry. The anti-democratic impulse of the corruption discussion is likely to further erode the domestic legitimacy of poor states.

A principled defence of aid must start with a critical challenge to the dogma of 'development advocacy'. Aid is only an act of solidarity when it distances itself from the condescending pitfalls of pity. Give help freely or don't give it at all!

Thanks deptforder, interesting article - but I actually think it can be read the other way too.

When money was first given to Mozambique, was it 'handed over' to the government unconditionally? - I'm not well up on international aid history, although I have some awareness of some current issues. Even if there were conditions and monitoring, I wouldn't mind betting that these were fairly lax in comparison to the current conditions that Ceri rails against. I repeat, can any of us, as individuals, hold our hands up and truly say that we have never 'pulled a fast one' to our own benefit? - financial or otherwise? We frequently see stories in our own press about people in positions of confidence (banks etc) engaging in financial fraud. The only reason it isn't more frequent, I would suggest, is that there are checks and controls. Without them, corruption will become widespread - because those who are 'honest' will start to think that if their bent colleagues get away scot-free, then why shouldn't they have the nicer things in life too? I once heard a saying: no-one is truly honest, it's just that some people's price is higher than others.

When the first Live Aid took place, the regime in Ethiopia was a military dictatorship (the Derg, under Mengistu). And, as pointed out in the article deptforder linked, the £ from the first Live Aid was not spent where needed.

The current government has its faults but is at least a democracy*. As the "history" of aid £ expenditure is negative, is it any wonder that the "powers that be" in the UN etc. are being more careful to ensure that the money goes where it is needed?

*Ethiopia has been a democracy for 20 years, we've been one for nearly 800 if you count from the Magna Carta - and we still haven't got it right, so perhaps less criticism and more appreciation for what they have achieved and assistance to help them improve (security specialists to address appropriate crowd control measures, for example) would be nice? I'm not going to comment any further as the issues are emotive and human rights related rather than aid-related, so not really relevant here.

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Phew, LMC. But we're still all here. The server took it ;) Rod Liddle is worth reading for a thoughtful take that ties into Ceri's viewpoint. I think they both have a stance that isn't heard enough. For example: "Corruption was scarcely present in Mozambique until benevolent western money started pouring in..." from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article70...

[QUOTE from Ceri, above]Countries have had to jump through hoops to qualify for HIPC status (Highly indebted poor country) drafting and redrafting what are known as PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers to suit donor concerns.[/quote]

Still no different in principle from conditions of any other kind of funding. ALL funders - including the trust I work for, which is actually quite NON-bureaucratic, require evidence of need and restrict the money to being spent on certain things. In our case, what the organisation asks for, if we think that's reasonable. Said reasonableness being based on our awareness and experience of the capacity of similar-size organisations (see * below).

Absolutely agree that needs should not be "prescribed" by the party that knows least about the issues. As background, we work with indigenous NGOs (in co-operation with government, but the funds go direct to the NGOs, and are not transferred through government). The NGOs themselves provide us with proposals based on the needs of the rural communities they serve - and are accountable to those communities as well as to us. As it happens, relieving poverty and meeting the needs of rural communities is the first objective listed in the PSRP of the country concerned. It is telling that, although we also fund health, education and agricultural projects, *by far* the greatest number of requests are for projects providing clean water. If we agree to fund a water project, is it not "fair" to require that the funds be spent on that project?

From http://www.imf.org/external/np/prsp/prsp.asp: (my bold)

"Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) are prepared by the member countries through a participatory process involving domestic stakeholders as well as external development partners, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund." (and there's more)

Let's bring this down to "silliness" - analogies are never perfect, but sometimes lead to some clarity. As a funder, we ask applicants for UK projects, who are allowed to apply for up to £90,000 over three years, to provide a 2-page proposal and a 1-page budget. Which works out at £30,000 per page. Let's say that it is reasonable to request that volume of information for that money. Certainly it compares well with the forms, etc required by ESF, SRB, other statutory funders and even other trusts.

The aid budget in 2007-8 from the UK alone is £5.3 billion (source: Treasury). At the rate of £30,000 per page of information to support evidence of need and explain how the money would be spent, that would work out as 176,666.66 pages. I just checked the PRSP for the developing country our trust works in. It is 225 pages. Sure, they are not receiving all that £5.3 billion - but their PRSP is not just for the purpose of whatever funding they are receiving from the UK, it's for the purpose of the World Bank, the IMF and other UN contributors. Yes, they have to supply additional paper in the form of updates and monitoring information - as do the projects that we fund. But comparing all that as well would make this post even more stupidly long than it already is.

[QUOTE from Ceri, above]They are then precluded from spending their debt relief (which provided no new money in any case) on the production base of the economy; the underlying assumption being developing country governments must be instructed on how to assist the poor as they cannot be trusted to look after them themselves.[/quote]

That's what I would like evidence for please - sources, etc. Sure, a government may not get *all* the debt relief it has asked for for "total development" of its economy. But I wouldn't mind betting that the relief that they ARE getting is for their own priorities, as defined by their own PSRP, which has been written by them (why am I thinking about brontosauruses at this point?).

*Picking up on my "We might know best" implication above, another analogy: if an organisation says it "needs" funding from us for a nationwide advertising campaign but comprises "one man and his dog in Walthamstow" running a local football project then we won't fund that advertising. We'll fund coaches, kit, pitch fees, whatever. If the organisation has the capacity to manage a national project, that's different. And, surprisingly, we have a reasonable stab at 'guessing' whether that capacity is there from the information that they provide us. Bringing this back to developing countries: suppose an emerging economy is given debt relief to develop its vehicle industry, but neglects to make any provision for the road network? - surely it's fair enough to expect this information as evidence that they have "thought it through?"

Sure, debt relief doesn't provide "new money". But it's still money. Writing it off altogether is a different moral issue and still raises the issues of how you "judge" who "deserves" to have their debt written off and what will happen in relation to continuing need in those countries and I'm going to stop RIGHT THERE before this website falls over at my verbosity.

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The comments so far on this short article are both interesting and illuminating Josh M and LMC want evidence.

If its evidence of the scale of the obsession with the issue, the evidence is here, in comments already submitted. If it is evidence of the impact of the obsession look no further than debt relief as debtforder points out. Countries have had to jump through hoops to qualify for HIPC status (Highly indebted poor country) drafting and redrafting what are known as PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers to suit donor concerns. They are then precluded from spending their debt relief (which provided no new money in any case) on the production base of the economy; the underlying assumption being developing country governments must be instructed on how to assist the poor as they cannot be trusted to look after them themselves.

There is also no shortage of evidence of the excessive levels of monitoring, interference and distrust. Read any aid site and you will find the usual stuff that reassures us it is going to reach the ‘right’ people and so on. If its evidence that corruption isn’t endemic, that is my point, there is no evidence that corruption is everywhere. Why are developing countries guilty until proven innocent? What is clear is there is an enhanced perception of endemic corruption, even Transparency International has a “corruption perceptions index” as opposed to evidence based material.

To understand the genesis of this phenomena I think we should consider the collapse of belief in politics and cynicism as key factors. It is now supposed that pretty much everyone, everywhere, has a ‘hidden agenda’, ‘dodgy goings on’ and so forth. This would seem to create a vicious circle since it further demeans politics and spreads distrust.

Finally it is a pity that cameronweaver thinks that writing such articles are publicity seeking, this is another example of assuming people must have some ulterior motive, in this case ‘publicity seeking’. This is always a sad form of opposition, accusing the author of saying something for the sake of it or being deliberately contrarian rather than critiquing the points made. In fact WORLDwrite finds todays’ ‘I me’ culture most destructive and were addressing this very issue in Cambridge on the ‘Feel Good’ ‘I-me’ nature of Fair trade. Our charity seeks to advance knowledge and international understanding, it is thus vital we argue against prevailing misanthropic views and that is the work of our charity. We encourage a younger generation to think critically on all matters, to engage and support their peers and if that involves relaying uncomfortable or unpopular truths so be it.

With a crew of young volunteers our charity is working on a documentary on the corruption issue and we would be delighted if any readers would like to contribute their views.

I think LMC is completely right about this. I'd love it if Ceri Dingle could provide some evidence for her points - but until then I can't agree with what she says.

Because I'm still feeling a little inarticulate on this whole area.

First, as pointed out in some of Peter's links, corruption is a "way of life" in some countries - an accepted cultural norm. That doesn't make it "right" - and it is illegal. But crime is often defined by social unacceptability as well as moral sense - if "everybody" is doing something then it's difficult to stamp out. How many of us have *never* engaged in any corruption? As a starter for ten, *never* agreed a discount for cash? Hmmm?

At government level - well, we are still hardly squeaky clean. I can't comment on whether the government is actively corrupt - I don't read enough, political rhetoric bores me. However, I do read enough to know that our government spends incredible amounts of money to no benefit (without getting too political *cough* Iraq *cough*) - government IT contracts anyone?

Second, funders who fund UK projects - including the government - use targets and monitoring, restrict their funding to certain areas (on the basis that they know so much better than the organisation concerned, which is only doing the work in that area every day) and demand evidence of where the money has been spent and that the targets have been met. So from that point of view, many funders are not treating overseas projects any differently from UK ones. For goodness sake, Worldwrite itself has to supply "evidence" to the Charity Commission (via its accounts, annual report and Annual Return) that it is spending its funds properly.

I agree, in principle, with Ms Dingle's point about trusting people (just as well, I'm sure I've banged on about it a couple of times). Sadly, in many aspects of life, not just charitable giving, "a few people spoil it for the rest". Which means that when it comes to development aid, somewhere along the line, someone has to be accountable for ensuring that the money is spent where intended.

Where I take issue with Ms Dingle is that her article has no "evidence". Exactly WHAT "conditions" is her tirade attacking? The requirement to produce evidence of some construction having taken place? Or what? Until she can produce some facts, this article is going in my mental "rubbish" bin. Sorry.

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Several people, not least Rod Liddle, have criticised the whole aid business. I reckon Ms Dingle overstates the case (and generalises horribly) but her work about paying back Third World debt has a point. Check out http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/damned/

If I was the boss of a small charity that wanted to get attention, then what could I do? On the one hand, I could get down to some serious work and try to make the world a better place. Or, if I didn't like the sound of that, I could be a controversialist and get my face everywhere by 'saying the unsayable'. With this article - plus an appearance, I note, at the Cambridge Union last week - Ms Dingle seems to have opted for the latter strategy. I don't doubt that Worldwrite is a major force for good in the world. But I'm sure it could be even better if its chief executive spent more time looking after it, instead of seeking publicity.

No evidence of corruption? Really?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2265387.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3819027.stm

http://www.u4.no/helpdesk/helpdesk/queries/query20.cfm

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol11no1/corrupt.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2006/...

http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/109/12-09-05galliotcorruption.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1431039,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/story/0,,1521819,00.html

Peter Heywood, Intelligent Giving