Mordaunt speech sets stage for privatisation of UK aid spending

Date: 9 October 2018
Campaigns: Aid

Decades of gains to put poverty reduction before business interests in international development under threat

Reacting to the speech by international development secretary Penny Mordaunt today, Ed Lewis, aid policy manager at Global Justice Now said:

“Penny Mordaunt’s announcement this morning sets the stage for the full-scale privatisation of aid spending. Not content with using public money to fund private schools in the developing world, the government now plans to outsource its obligations to tackle poverty to the private sector. This is a betrayal of our country’s responsibility for ending global poverty and inequality, and instead turns other people’s poverty into a money-making opportunity.

“Mordaunt’s plans are based on a delusional view of Britain’s historic role in the world in which British business is only ever a force for good. She spoke of how Britain has enriched the world through trade – but left out how the world has enriched Britain through empire. The gains of anti-poverty campaigning over the last thirty years to put people before profit are under threat if this wrong-headed privatisation of the aid budget is allowed to proceed.”

Notes

Global Justice Now has long campaigned against the misuse of the UK’s aid budget. We fight against those who seek to profit from the UK’s aid budget, push back against aid being used to privatise public services overseas and prevent the government from using aid to promote foreign, business and military interests around the world.

We also campaign for an alternative approach to aid spending that is steeped in principles of social justice, equality and the global redistribution of political and economic power. We campaign for progressive ways to spend aid that tackle the root causes of poverty.

Read our resources on aid:

Photo: Department for International Development