What do you think we should be spending the UK’s international aid budget on? Vaccines? Dealing with climate change? Helping countries close tax loopholes?
I’m guessing you didn’t say profit-making private schools. But unfortunately, that’s exactly what the UK government has been doing.
This report, published by Global Justice Now and the National Education Union, examines the problems with privatisation of school education around the world and the role of the Department for International Development in pushing it through its aid programme.
It’s never been a better time to be an aid-funded business. Alongside the UK’s now legally enshrined commitment to spend 0.7% of its national income on aid, a growing trend has emerged where an ever-increasing amount of that budget is spent through private companies. DfID spends some £1.4 billion through private contractors annually, with most of it going to just 11 suppliers.
Forty years ago the provision of water was a public service that was taken for granted in many parts of the world. Few people thought water could ever be privatised and sold for private profit.
We have just heard that the privatisation of Jakarta’s water system has been struck down by the city court. The city’s contracts with two private water corporations were declared void, on the grounds that they had failed to meet the human rights of the citizens of Jakarta.
New research released today shows that since 2002, £140 million of UK aid money has been spent by the Department for International Development on projects to support the privatisation of Nigeria’s energy system, with disastrous consequences.
What do you think we should be spending the UK’s international aid budget on? Vaccines? Dealing with climate change? Helping countries close tax loopholes?
I’m guessing you didn’t say profit-making private schools. But unfortunately, that’s exactly what the UK government has been doing.
It’s never been a better time to be an aid-funded business. Alongside the UK’s now legally enshrined commitment to spend 0.7% of its national income on aid, a growing trend has emerged where an ever-increasing amount of that budget is spent through private companies. DfID spends some £1.4 billion through private contractors annually, with most of it going to just 11 suppliers.
Forty years ago the provision of water was a public service that was taken for granted in many parts of the world. Few people thought water could ever be privatised and sold for private profit.
We have just heard that the privatisation of Jakarta’s water system has been struck down by the city court. The city’s contracts with two private water corporations were declared void, on the grounds that they had failed to meet the human rights of the citizens of Jakarta.
This report, published by Global Justice Now and the National Education Union, examines the problems with privatisation of school education around the world and the role of the Department for International Development in pushing it through its aid programme.
New research released today shows that since 2002, £140 million of UK aid money has been spent by the Department for International Development on projects to support the privatisation of Nigeria’s energy system, with disastrous consequences.
