A Closer Union: The Political Abuse of Foreign Aid

Both the Labour Party and the Conservatives have pledged to increase spending on international development through the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), even in this so-called time of austerity. It is therefore important to evaluate the effectiveness of DfID’s spending. This briefing paper is part of such an ongoing assessment being conducted by IPN.

In our report Fake Aid (Sep 2009), we questioned the effectiveness of spending by DFID on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the UK. It transpired that funds distributed under ‘publicity’ budgets often stay within the UK.

One recipient of such money is the Trades Union Congress (TUC). In our earlier report, we revealed that the TUC had received £1.2m from DfID since 2003. Since publication, we have become aware of a further £2.4m that DfID recently granted to the TUC; meaning that the TUC will have received a total of £3.6m from DfID between 2003 and 2011.

This briefing paper seeks to ask whether the money transferred to the TUC genuinely aids the development of poor countries and helps improve the condition of the world’s poorest people. In this paper we outline some concerns over the various grants made to the TUC.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-o/ / CC BY 2.0