Billions of UK aid failing to reduce poverty, report finds

Shortfall in standards casts doubt on transparency of Britain's aid spending

Too much of Britain's aid budget is being spent poorly by Whitehall departments on projects that fail the test of reducing poverty in the world's poorest countries, a campaign group has said.

The One Campaign - an advocacy organisation set up by the U2 singer Bono - said the huge gulf in standards across government was undermining the battle to build public trust that taxpayers' money was being well spent.

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1.5bn of aid was being spent with barely any transparency about where and how it was delivered.

At least 475m of aid came with strings attached so that is has to be spent through UK institutions, contravening Britain's system of untied aid.

115m of FCO aid was being spent to subsidise relatively affluent students going to university in the UK.

Three of the five largest (in cash terms) programmes within the Newton Fund - which aims to develop science and innovation partnerships that promote the economic development and social welfare of partner countries - were based in China and were not focused on global poverty reduction.

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