While the UK government has some responsibility for counting the costs of supporting refugees here against its overseas aid target (Billions in foreign aid never leaves Britain under Sunak rules – analysis, 29 October), you are letting the real culprits off the hook. The blame lies rather with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s development assistance committee (DAC), the “donor club” that writes the rules for official development assistance (ODA, or overseas aid). The DAC first allowed “in-donor” refugee costs to score as aid back in the 1980s, and it has recently added numerous other dubious rules that exaggerate donors’ generosity at every turn.
They hide profits made on aid investments (only counting the losses); over-count the cost to the donors of providing aid loans; double-count the non-repayment risk; and allow donors to score ODA for forgiving export credits, even though exporters and developing country governments have funded these costs by paying insurance fees or other charges.
As a result, poorer countries are being starved of the aid they were promised, including the climate finance grants and truly concessional loans they need. This leaves developing countries paying for climate change they didn’t cause, while donors claim credit for aid they haven’t given.
Rishi Sunak’s government may be taking advantage, but the real blame lies with those who are writing the corrupt, self-serving rules that are allowing all donor countries to cook the books: the DAC and its colluding OECD bureaucrats in Paris, which consistently deny there is any problem.
Steve Cutts
Former United Nations assistant secretary general (2013-17)
