UK Aid Priorities
By Mark | January 10, 2012
British parliamentarians query choice of countries to receive UK aid.
Should the UK have bilateral aid programmes for Lesotho and Swaziland?
A report by British parliamentarians queries some the approaches and methodology used by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in its Bilateral Aid Review.
The report endorses the general approach of focussing on fewer countries but points to a systematic bias against countries with small populations, such as Lesotho and Swaziland and shows how by using different criteria including percentage poverty rate not just numbers in poverty gives a different group of 27 focus countries. It also states the some of the methodology were used to justify decisions already made. The parliamentarians request the closure the UK bilateral aid programme for Burundi be reviewed and a bilateral programme re-established. The report shows by adopting different criteria then countries such as Lesotho and Swaziland would have a good case for there to be a UK bilateral aid programme. The report also says closure of bilateral aid programmes should be in a planned phased way. The Lesotho programme was effectively closed when the Bilateral Aid review report was made public.
For the full report go to Africa All Party Parliamentary Group website
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