Foreign Office under fire over aid spent on game show and Facebook project
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Version 0 of 1. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has launched a review of its use of aid money following reports it has spent nearly £300,000 on projects including a TV game show in Ethiopia, a Shakespeare workshop in Ecuador and efforts to find mates for fish off Madagascar. While the overwhelming majority of the UK’s £12bn aid budget is administered and spent by the Department for International Development (DfID), the Foreign Office was allocated £343m of aid money last year. On Thursday, the Sun newspaper published a list of projects apparently funded by FCO aid money, ranging from a £7,000 anti-littering campaign in Jordan to a £970 programme designed to promote the safe and responsible use of Facebook in Laos. According to the Sun, the FCO spent nearly £14,000 on the Ethiopian quiz show as part of its drive to “connect with a younger generation of Ethiopians … [and] engage them on UK values of human rights and good governance”. A further £5,000 went on “Hamlet education workshops” in Quito to mark a visit by the Globe theatre in London, claimed the newspaper. Related: UK passes bill to honour pledge of 0.7% foreign aid target In a box headlined “Fish Called Squander”, the Sun reported that the department also spent £3,400 trying to help find mates for two endangered Mangarahara cichlid fish in London Zoo. Although the FCO pointed out that the projects in question had cost a total of £278,000 – 0.08% of its total aid allocation last year – it said the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, had asked for the spending to be investigated. “The foreign secretary has ordered a review so that we can be sure that every last penny of the FCO’s aid spending around the world is effective and represents value for money,” said a spokeswoman. “Building closer relationships with growing economies is important. The vast majority of aid spending promotes UK prosperity and broader stability but there will be a crackdown on projects that cannot show tax-payers’ cash is being spent wisely.” Scrutiny of the aid budget has intensified in recent months as the UK not only hit the four-decade old UN target of spending 0.7% of national income overseas on aid but also enshrined the commitment in law. Some Tory backbenchers attempted to derail the legislative process, with one dismissing it as sop to “Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing, lentil-eating” do-gooders with a “misguided guilt complex”. On Sunday, the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, suggested that more of Britain’s aid budget should be spent to discourage mass migration from Africa so that the UK does not have to “fish” refugees out of the Mediterranean. |