The Guardian: Billions of U.K. aid failing to reduce poverty, report finds
“Too much of Britain’s aid budget is being spent poorly by Whitehall departments on projects that fail the test of reducing poverty in the world’s poorest countries, a campaign group has said. The ONE Campaign — an advocacy organization set up by the U2 singer Bono — said the huge gulf in standards across government was undermining the battle to build public trust that taxpayers’ money was being well spent. … The campaign group’s new Real Aid Index said that only 5 percent of the £765m spent by the business, energy, and industrial strategy department (BEIS) and 16 percent of the £1.05bn spent by the Foreign Office (FCO) went to the countries that needed it most…” (Elliot, 2/4).