Britain spends billions of pounds a year on overseas aid – with UK taxpayers’ cash being splurged on projects such as shrimp farming in Bangladesh.
Research by ‘The Waste Files’ campaign has revealed some of the examples of how Britons’ money is being spent around the world.
This also includes poetry workshops in Colombian jails, and a conference on preventing ‘gender-based disinformation’ in Kenya.
Aid spending has been thrown back into the limelight after Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk gutted the United States’ overseas spending programme.
The Trump administration has presented a plan to dramatically cut staffing worldwide for US aid projects as part of its dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The plan would see thousands of workers lose their jobs, with fewer than 300 positions left in USAID to administer humanitarian aid programmes around the world.
At the same time the UK has actually increased its overseas spending.
‘The Waste Files’ campaign, which aims to mirror Mr Musk’s efforts to cut public spending in the US, highlighted how £133,601 of UK taxpayers’ money has been spent studying shrimp health in Bangladesh since October 2022.
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Government’s marine and freshwater science experts, gave a series of contracts to the Bangladesh Agricultural University.
Downing Street defended the UK’s aid spending as a means of helping to tackle ‘global challenges’ like wars, climate change and poverty.
But No10 also warned an upcoming spending review ‘will go line-by-line through Government spending to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent with the public’s priorities at the heart of it’.
‘The Waste Files’ campaign highlighted how £133,601 of UK taxpayers’ money has been spent studying shrimp health in Bangladesh since October 2022
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk is leading efforts to cut government spending in the US under Donald Trump’s administration
‘The Waste Files’ campaign also found how the British Council charity – which is getting £162.5million from the Foreign Office this year in overseas development aid – recently boasted of funding a ‘performance poet’.
They are said to use poetry ‘to explore what it means to be human… from workshops in Colombian prisons to performances in a Bangkok mall’.
It was also revealed how, in January last year, the Foreign Office spent £110,000 on a conference on preventing ‘gender-based disinformation’ in Kenya.
The two-month contract was awarded to the National Democratic Institute.
The Foreign Office was also shown to have spent £500,000 to buy 15 electric vehicles being donated to Albanian prisons ‘as part of the drive towards Net Zero’.
Former government adviser Jason Brown, who has launched ‘The Waste Files’ campaign, said: ‘With taxes at eye-watering levels and hard-working families struggling to make ends meet, Brits up and down the country will be astonished that their hard-earned money is being spent on sending electric cars to prisons in Albania.’
Tory shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: ‘Given the Chancellor’s disastrous Budget, it’s clear that we must urgently rein in these pointless and eye-watering spending projects to stop further tax rises on hard-working families.
‘The time for reckless spending is over. We need a government that prioritises value for money, not waste — and under new leadership only the Conservatives will deliver that.’
Asked about UK aid spending, Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman told reporters today: ‘The Prime Minister is clear that all taxpayers’ money should be spent properly.
‘The whole Government recognises that and the upcoming spending review will go line-by-line through Government spending to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent with the public’s priorities at the heart of it.
‘More generally we’ve been clear about our commitment to overseas aid to deliver a more stable world and to deliver security here at home.’
The PM’s spokesman refused to be drawn on specific examples of aid spending, but added: ‘Our development assistance to countries is about contributing to a safer, more prosperous UK by tackling global challenges like conflicts, climate, poverty.
‘All of which can directly affect British lives and contribute to problems on our shores like irregular migration, global wars, climate change and the shocks that knock-on impacts can have for growth.
‘But the PM has been clear any spending must be of course be rigorously tested against our Plan for Change and deliver on taxpayers’ priorities.’
Development Minister Annelise Dodds this month said the UK’s commitment to international aid ‘remains steadfast’ despite the Trump decision .
Ms Dodds’ comments followed the publication of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) aid allocations for 2024/25.
This saw total spending on official development assistance (ODA) rise to £9.3billion from £8.1billion in the previous year.
Under plans set out in 2023, the previous government had expected the FCDO to spend £8.3billion on ODA in 2024/25.
Ms Dodds stressed that she had made few changes to the plans set out by the previous Tory government, in order to ensure ‘stability’.
The biggest single national recipient of aid is Ukraine, which is fighting off a brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. This is on top of the billions of pounds’ worth of military aide we have given to Kyiv.
Eight of the top 10 national recipients are in Africa, led by Ethiopia, which has been mired in a civil war since 2018.
There were some increases in funding, such as an extra £113 million in humanitarian support for Sudan and those who had fled to neighbouring countries, an extra £15 million for the Occupied Palestinian Territories – after the brutal war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza – and £50 million for Syria, where the Assad regime collapsed at the end of last year.
Allocations for Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, particularly India, were lower than plans set out in 2023, the last time the FCDO published its plans for 2024/25.
As well as money set aside by country and region, the largest singe pot of cash is reserved for British Investment Partnerships (BIP)s.
These are programmes which bring together governments and private firms in the developing world to allow them to access finance that might otherwise be out of reach.
There is also a focus on health and education programmes.
Mr Trump’s administration has presented a plan to dramatically cut staffing worldwide for US aid projects as part of its dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
The plan would see thousands of workers lose their jobs, with fewer than 300 positions left in USAID to administer humanitarian aid programmes around the world
Development Minister Annelise Dodds this month said the UK’s commitment to international aid ‘remains steadfast’ despite the Trump decision
In a statement to Parliament, Ms Dodds also said that reductions in the amount spent on housing asylum seekers in the UK, which the Government includes in its aid figures, meant more could be spent on programmes overseas.
Ms Dodds also said any reductions to aid allocations were ‘a result of the previous government’s decisions’, except where teams had been ‘unable to deliver their full budgets’ or where ‘changes in operating context’ required ‘reprioritisation’.
The Government has a target of meeting the target of spending 0.5 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid set by the previous Tory administration, which reduced it from 0.7 per cent after the Covid pandemic.
Although Labour has said it intends to return spending to 0.7 per cent, it has said it will only do this when the fiscal situation allows, echoing the position of its Conservative predecessors.
Gideon Rabinowitz, policy director at international development network Bond, said it was ‘encouraging’ to see a significant increase in ODA funding for Africa, which was allocated £1.5 billion, and ‘beginning to repair the damage caused by devastating cuts over previous years’.
He added: ‘However, the Government could have gone further in prioritising the countries that need support the most, as a significant portion of additional funding is being directed toward (British International Investment), an institution with a less-than-stellar track record of prioritising these countries.’
Ian Mitchell, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, said: ‘By reducing the cost of hosting refugees in the UK, ministers have freed up some more of the aid budget to be spent on what it’s meant for – ‘overseas’ aid.
‘They can now nearly double spending in Africa — after a 15-year low. This is the first sign that the Government is serious about tackling extreme poverty.
‘At a time when the Trump administration is dismantling the US’s development agency, the UK can demonstrate to the rest of the world that even a modest development budget can have major impacts if it is focused where aid goes furthest.’
