2 - 8 May 2002
Issue No.584
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 May 2002 Issue No.584 |
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A new slant
John Sawers, British ambassador to Cairo, told Al-Ahram Weekly how Britain's aid programme is marching to a different drum
he year 1997 blew like a fresh wind for Colin Clarke, head of Britain's aid programme in Egypt. Britain's new development secretary, Clare Short, had re- branded her government's aid policy. The overarching aim now became "poverty reduction," and "everything changed," said Clarke. "We targeted poverty alone. There were no secondary ties, no politics, no commerce, just the poor."
Others thought things less straightforward. Cynics argued that, though rhetorically different, in practice this was not far from the avowed mission of USAID, which is to support US foreign policy by promoting democracy and free trade and helping developing countries. It has, after all, become a commonplace of developed-world orthodoxy that Milton Friedman and global free trade are the best ways to alleviate human misery.
John Sawers, British ambassador to Cairo, described a subtler approach to aid than is manifest in either view. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that "Of course our aid is not totally divorced from foreign policy considerations. In the Palestinian territories, aid is tied to the foreign policy objective of achieving a Middle East settlement. In South Africa, our aid programme created the environment to end Apartheid peacefully. We also feel that the best vehicle for assistance is multilateral aid. We pay 16 per cent of the EC's aid budget and contribute to the World Bank and the IMF programmes."
But aid's links to trade, which have upset Third World thinkers from Franz Fanon on down, have gone. "Britain never used to have huge links between aid and trade," said Sawers. "We did have the mega-projects of the 1960s and '70s, and the structural adjustment of the 1980s. The 1990s saw an emphasis on good government. But now the aim is poverty reduction sui generis. None of our aid is [commercially] tied. None of it has to be spent on UK firms. Our aim is not to lock countries into Britain. We see it as a good in itself to help ease poverty."
Aid, while it may not be political, then, is, at least, ideological. Reducing poverty, while being something most people would accept as "a good," is an ideological choice. The other "benefits" that flow from aid have been more contentious; or at least donor and recipient countries have squabbled about how best to achieve them and what they mean. "We also see it as a good to provide health care; to encourage better government; to build stronger institutions; to support human rights in developing countries," said Sawers.
In Egypt, poverty, according to Clarke, is less severe than in many other developing countries. For that reason the aid programme here is small and ruthlessly targeted. "We feel it best to focus on two or three areas where we can add an element," says Sawers. He mentions the SEAM project (see main story) and Britain's education mission at the British Council. In this respect, Clarke may be correct when he says UK aid is at last free of politics. As a small, compact aid programme, SEAM is largely below the radar of policy-makers. And better than that, it may even be doing some good.
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