Join the Battle! Wasteful Foreign Aid

Perhaps "wasteful foreign aid" needs an accurate definition before anyone can even look at this.

Are you saying that foreign aid is wasteful per se? - or only specified aspects of it?

Signed

Me, personally? It depends where it is going, who needs it, and is it being administered correctly and accounted for. Definition of Foreign Aid? Where a rich country takes from the poor people, and gives to the rich people of a poor country. It is widely published in all news sources that foreign aid is getting into the wrong hands - for one instance. But you can check this out for yourself - the information is widely available to all who want to make a considered opinion. As we work to pay the taxes that look after us in the form of the NHS, education, trades training, housing, public transport, road and rail networks, clean water, etc, surely we should make this work here first?

Firecracker Outstanding!

Pull up the drawbridge and just look after ourselves then? Personally, I think that those of us who have the good fortune to live in relative affluence have a moral duty to assist those not so fortunate. Shoot me down if you like but I find selfishness and smugness reprehensible.

I think a discription of wasteful would be the 'Ethiopian spice girls'
They received over £9 mil to develope their ' Branded Medium Platform'
Seeing as China practically own Ethiopia now, why do they need our money

You may find examples of wasteful foreign aid, but we should NEVER use that maladmistration as an excuse for reducing our forteign aid.

We can never give enough

I won't be signing it. It seems to be implying that all foreign aid is a waste. Perhaps there is wastage but there is probably wastage in almost every area of politics and commerce.

Our taxes are spent on things that I don't approve of but I accept that some people do. The amount that goes to foreign aid is relatively small - and has often been given with strings attached anyway.

And what a miserable message for Christmas.

I won't be signing, either. I think it's appalling.

I agree with varian

One of the problems is to define what is "wasteful" . many people confuse "foreign aid" with "humanitarian aid" - they are not always the same thing at all.

Most governments use aid for a wide range of political goals that benefit their own country - for example aid may be used to gain the assistance of a foreign government for mutual aims of preventing terrorism (training, equipment, refugee projects)/drugs (alternative crops/aid to enforcement) or as a mechanism in trade relations - for example many "aid" deals require the money is used to purchase specific items made in the donor country.

Foreign aid is rarely given altruistically. There are usually strings attached which benefit the donors. It’s often given to countries which have been plundered in the past . Giving money to poor countries can no doubt be misused. Maybe better to ensure it’s used better to help those most desperate and not just hoard everything, especially when much of the wealth has been earned through the exploitation of the dispossessed. I won’t be signing.

No I will not sign that. We are essentially a very rich country. We must be rich, many UK households create tons of viable food waste every year. I seriously object to signing that petition.

Bah! Humbug! Are the refugee tents not working? Are they not being sent back from whence they came?

If you read the full petition it states that the 0.7 GDP target for foreign aid should be abolished and the money spent on increasing Defence and the Armed Forces. If we spend less on foreign aid the world will becomes a less safe and healthy place and we will definitely need extra for our Defence budget! More children will die of preventable diseases, fewer children will be educated, employment opportunities will diminish in the developing countries, and we increase the misery of those who live on less than a dollar a day.

And it’s a ‘no’ from me.

So many people on here burying their heads in the sand. The money needs to go to make sure people have clean water, food and a roof over their heads, not to supplement foreign dictators wealth as a lot of it at present.

No from me too

I would like to see far more accountability and, as Poppy said, to make sure that the aid goes to the people who really need it - and for education - and not into the wrong hands.

However, I won't sign it because it is far too specific and I do not agree that the money should be diverted to our Defence budget, which is another matter altogether.

The money needs to go to make sure people have clean water, food and a roof over their heads, not to supplement foreign dictators wealth as a lot of it at present.

I'd happily sign if that was what it was asking for, but it isn't.

So I looked up the petition founders FB page - he has rubbish privacy settings so I now know far more about him than is healthy especially his line in oh so funny nudge nudge did I just use a naughty word with a sexual innuendo joke? Well bless him - he gets a bit muddled up with his petitions to abolish the foreign aid budget. The petition linked to on here wants the money spent on defence and the armed forces but he’s also got a petition for the same thing but this time the money saved is to spent on the nhs, and social care. Doncha just hate it when a man keeps changing his mind - could I sign both petitions or do I have to choose which?

And it's a no here too.
Sounds like a similar soundbite to the red bus slogan pre-referendum and 'taking back control'. If it appeals to that demographic then it isn't for
me!!

No

Of course some of our foreign aid money is wasted on frivolous projects. A lot of the defence budget is wasted on badly planned and ineffective projects. Come to that the same applies to health and education expenditure.

Lets start petitions to ban the government spending money on anything because they cannot guarantee that in any budget some of the money will not be spent on frivolous, ineffective or wasteful projects. Because it will.