A Safer and More Prosperous World: Why aid really matters in an age of austerity

At a time when the UK economic recovery is slow and budget cuts are common right across Whitehall, the UK government's commitment to increase its international development budget has never been more controversial. Can spending so much in developing countries be justified when so many Britons are suffering at home? Further, what lessons have been learned in recent years-from both experience and empirical research-of the utility of foreign aid? Can we be sure what works and what doesn't?

Former Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, argues that the government's commitment to international development is not only morally right, but that it is a vital instrument of statecraft that helps protect the UK's prosperity and fosters peaceful diplomacy.

Britain's international development policies are not about soft-hearted altruism. They are a clear and hard-headed approach to our own security and prosperity. But they are also morally right. By standing by our commitment to international development, britain has earned both respect and admiration around the world. Even at a time of economic hardship for many families in britain, we have refused to balance the books on the back of the world's poor. This is in our best traditions. Britain has a proud history of going to the assistance of those who are suffering, whether it is campaigning to abolish slavery in the nineteenth century, the fight against fascism in the twentieth century, or "making poverty history" in the twenty-first century.

This year, 2013, under a Conservative-led government, britain is delivering its historic promise to the world's poorest people to allocate 0.7 percent of our gross national income (under one penny in every pound) to their support. This is in addition to the immense generosity shown by british individuals who support the work of the extraordinary british charities and NGOs that make such a difference in the poorest parts of the world.

But at a time of economic difficulty, the justification for development spending when other areas of public expenditure are being reduced is not an easy one. Anyone can spend other people's money, but the real test is whether it delivers value to british taxpayers as well as clear results for those we are trying to help. Is it effective? Are funds used for the best possible advantage? Is it aid and development for the benefit of britain as well as from britain....

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Note: The views expressed in this post are those of the author, not of the 2020 Conservatives group as a collective, the Conservative Party or the Government.