Foreign Aid budget cut

[MellowBird85]

Do you agree with it?

YANBU - Yes it was the right decision to cut it.
YABU - No they should’ve left it alone.

the roads in Ghana are not fine outside of Accra - also dangerous

I lived in Accra for 18 months before moving up to kamasi and eventually up country to tamale. Agree with you that the traffic is gridlocked in the capital. Main roads around the country are perfectly drivable in a 2 wheel drive vehicle and they are definstely some of the better roads in west Africa. Secondary roads are graded gravel in most places and then in the real backwater places they are pretty appalling in places. The point still stands though, while the roads are certainly not European in standard they still do not need speced out 4x4s to navigate them except in the real remote areas.

@thegcatsmother

Now that Boris is on about spending billions on the armed forces can you imagine the levels of corruption that are going to go on? all his mates in Oxford running (for example) timber import businesses or whatever will suddenly overnight be running weapons factories and be given contracts for millions.

Don't be daft - the weapons HM Forces use are ordered years in advance and are NATO standardised for the most part.

No they are not. Some ammo & comms yes but i don't see uk forces using Leopard tanks or the french navy using type xx frigates.

Pretty sure Turkey is a NATO member and has a Russian missile system... yanks use one type of torpedo, the UK another, the french yet another......

Plenty of v big ticket items are not standardised.

The point still stands though, while the roads are certainly not European in standard they still do not need speced out 4x4s to navigate them except in the real remote areas

The most expensive land cruiser is 47k, you said 60k and these are rrp's.
What happens when they are needed in remote areas and the Fiat 500's you specced can't cope?
Don't they lease them in anycase?

I used to live in a couple of countries which were recipients of foreign aid. The poverty was horrendous. But you know what was worse, watching the mega-rich living lives that most well off Brits could only dream of. There was a heli-pad just near my condo. The traffic was horrendous in that city, so those with means, would fly right over the top. So yes, spend the money in the UK and start expecting some of these countries to create functioning states that pay their own way. The money appears to be there...

And yet, there is a NATO Standardisation Office, and standards approved by the NAC for weapons, ammunitions etc.

Turkey is an outlier who is pushing the limits in NATO.

We share carriers with the Yanks and the French - who supplies our nukes? Where do we get TLAM?

Why bother with interoperability then?

Tomahawk is used by the UK and USA, so what?

You are wrong, most NATO nations use their own designs of ships, sub's, planes, armour etc etc, in other words the big ticket items.

Ammo and comms are the main standardisations.

We use US made/designed nukes but the french do not.

I do not believe France has crew, planes, helicopters or weapons systems on our two new AC.

The eurofighter is a cooperative between european nations nowt to do with NATO.

Loads of eastern/central euro countries in NATO still have soviet designed stuff. The main thing they care about is using the same ammunition, so if conflict does begin they dont have to supply 100s of different sizes and types and can have simpler supply lines.

Anyway my point was bottles, webbing, sleeping bags etc. are items that armed forces use, and which the torys various scummy mates will be looking to exploit now they know theres a big spend coming on them.

The most expensive land cruiser is 47k, you said 60k and these are rrp's.
What happens when they are needed in remote areas and the Fiat 500's you specced can't cope?

Look, if you need a 4x4 as an NGO to get to remote poorly serviced areas then you need a 4x4, I am not going to argue otherwise. What I witnessed on numerous occasions thoughout West Africa was various agencies getting these vehicles as standard issue when they quite clearly did not need them. Yes the traffic in Accra was awful, but did you really need a new land cruiser with steel bumpers & bullbars
rollcages & ROPS/FOPS systems, roof racks, satellite antenna plus mounting brackets, winch mounts, flatbeds, spot lighting, double spare wheel carriers, split charge dual battery trays, rocksliders and sump skidplates to get through a traffic jam. I have quite literally driven the length of Africa and I did not half that shite.

NGO's use a variety of vehicles, not just decked out LC's, GM, BMW and others will sometimes provide vehicles for free.

Its any easy thing just to tar FA with this "wasteful" tag, without providing any evidence.

@DillonPanthersTexas

*The most expensive land cruiser is 47k, you said 60k and these are rrp's. What happens when they are needed in remote areas and the Fiat 500's you specced can't cope?*

Look, if you need a 4x4 as an NGO to get to remote poorly serviced areas then you need a 4x4, I am not going to argue otherwise. What I witnessed on numerous occasions thoughout West Africa was various agencies getting these vehicles as standard issue when they quite clearly did not need them. Yes the traffic in Accra was awful, but did you really need a new land cruiser with steel bumpers & bullbars
rollcages & ROPS/FOPS systems, roof racks, satellite antenna plus mounting brackets, winch mounts, flatbeds, spot lighting, double spare wheel carriers, split charge dual battery trays, rocksliders and sump skidplates to get through a traffic jam. I have quite literally driven the length of Africa and I did not half that shite.

I lived in Egypt in the 90s and Maadi, the expat suburb, was full of Land Cruisers driven by the wives of Americans working for NGOs or on military projects. They certainly didn't need them to negotiate the roads there. The cost of putting their dcs in the local American school was eye watering as well. Money seemed to be no object. Meanwhile people who worked for multinationals sometimes had to top up school fees from their own pocket. I found it absolutely sickening what comfortable lifestyles people were living, paid for by foreign aid.

I found it absolutely sickening what comfortable lifestyles people were living, paid for by foreign aid

It's not for nothing that it's called an industry, and while I don't doubt the good some do, we can hardly expect turkeys to vote for Christmas and all that

@Andante57

Look at how the Chinese government has put so much money into Africa - so it has power and influence over trade and infrastructure decisions

I’m interested about the huge investments China has made in Africa. Is it a good thing especially considering China’s poor human rights record or is it colonialism?

Yes all of that about China is a concern - they say they are there to do business & not worried about HRs so some corrupt governments sell off natural resources to enrich themselves with no planning & investment for the future. As the global north has also bought primary resources cheap to fuel our industries and sold back manufactured products we don’t really have any moral high ground!

Sometimes China offers better interest rates on loans. But overall they have the same colonial/ making friends and influencing people intentions as the global north.

@VladmirsPoutine

The corrupt aid-structures of countries we give to are a huge significant issue within this question but I don't think it should be cut. Britain historically has done so much damage around the world e.g. former colonies that they haven't even begun to make solid reparations for.

So glad you highlighted the history. Too many British people have no idea how Britain became a rich country. Ignorance is bliss...

Criticism of how India uses its money and has a space program is a tricky one because of the history imo. Some would argue that Britain is only rich because of how much was taken from India, not to mention the manpower Indian soldiers provided the British Empire to win wars that were not theirs to fight (most of which is forgotten...). An Economic study calculated that Britain stole goods to be worth about $45 Trillion (google it) from India.

When it comes to India, foreign aid feels more like debt-repayment. Foreign Aid sounds better than "we are paying India back for taking so much of their resources to build Britain's wealth".

It is a charged issue and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it either tbh

The way that these cuts have happened has been the most shocking thing. I work in foreign aid and the U.K. committed funding to us 2 years ago. We’ve spent the last year designing and building programs, hiring staff, getting set up in country (women & girls focused.) now they’ve recalled the funds. Programs cancelled, local staff fired. Not only does it damage the UK’s reputation well into the future, but it’s a horrendous waste of money.

Government corruption is a big problem but a vast amount of aid funding goes directly to local NGOs and funds local salaries, it doesn’t go through government.

Aid also benefits us in the long run. There’s a reason it’s referred to as U.K. Aid abroad rather than DFID or FCDO. It’s about our reputation, soft power, not to mention reducing long term problems like refugee flows and instability which we’d ultimately get involved in.

If the pandemic hasn’t shown us that what happens abroad is relevant to us, then nothing will!