How foreign aid is wasted
From George Gitros Sir: The article by John Bercow advocating a Tory commitment to higher overseas aid spending (`The Tories must help the poor', 6 November) makes depressing reading.
Nobody disputes the need for humanitarian disaster relief. However, the fact is that foreign aid is a waste of time and money, unless it can be provided in the context of a reasonably stable, peaceful and law-abiding social environment. The rule of law and some semblance or hope of an orderly market, or something that might evolve into one, are a necessary precondition.
Before planting, the peasant farmer needs to be sure that his title to the land is secure, that the land will still be his when he harvests the crop. He needs to be confident that when he gets his product to market, some witless do-gooder has not undermined it by distributing free goods, or that the EU or the US has not wrecked it by dumping subsidised products. One has only to look at Zimbabwe — starvation in the former breadbasket of Africa — to see the effect of a collapse of the rule of law.
If we are serious about Third World poverty we must be prepared to face the real problems. Without this commitment the only pre dictable result of overseas aid is the self-satisfied smirk on the face of the donor.
George Gittos
St Briavels, Gloucestershire
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