Downgrading overseas aid and DfID will diminish Britain – Yorkshire Post Letters

MERGING the Department for International Aid (DfID) with the Foreign Office (FCO) gives all the wrong signals to our international partners and diminishes the impact of UK aid (The Yorkshire Post, June 22).

I spent 20 years working in new and emerging democracies across four continents, often in delicate electoral situations, and the level of informal co-operation between DfID and the local FCO staff was invariably practical and valuable.

It was well understood that each organisation was independent but we all knew 
that there was nothing to be gained by going in different directions and stepping on each others’ toes.

Very often, in response to a particularly urgent electoral problem, there was a constructive discussion as to which body was in the best position to assist.

There were situations when I was able to insist to local politicians, or electoral officers, that I was acting to channel aid independently when it would have provoked a negative reaction if it could be perceived to be the UK government leaning on me.

A particular aspect of the separation between DfID and 
the FCO comes in the delicate area of aid for governance projects in new and emerging democracies.

The whole purpose of such projects is to enable a country to embed the democratic process in its governance structure with healthy political parties, an effective parliamentary basis and an independent civil service.

Local politicians were very often suspicious of such projects seeing the hidden hand of colonialism behind them. It would have been far more difficult to persuade them of our professionalism if the aid was a FCO-dominated decision than from an independent DfID.

If the Government genuinely wishes to make the biggest impact from our aid, it should drop this decision to merge the departments.

From: Henry Cobden, Ilkley.

AID is integral to foreign policy – and should, therefore, come under the remit of the Foreign Office.

But do we need a separate Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office?

Surely defence, foreign and aid policy are all inter-related and could come under one super-ministry?

I also agree (The Yorkshire Post, June 26) that the armed forces should be deployed to future flooding incidents.

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James Mitchinson

Editor