Politicize aid? It already is – and good too

On Thursday, Andrew Mitchell rolled out the government’s first overseas aid initiative – a transparency watchdog – and took to the airwaves to explain the idea. It makes particular sense in a downturn to ensure that taxpayer’s money is well spent but also to give voters the feeling that independent assessments are carried out to guarantee value for their money.
 
On Newsnight, the International Development Secretary ran into a criticism, often voiced by the aid community – that the Conservatives are too willing to “militarise” aid or to “politicise” it. He dealt with the criticism  robustly – but I want to have a go too. Because while these are snappy sound bites they miss a number of fundamental points.
 
Development assistance, unlike humanitarian relief, is an inherently political business. Long-term growth and poverty-alleviation only takes place when developing countries decide to organise their affairs – their regulatory systems, their monetary and fiscal arrangements, their police-and-justice institutions and so on — in ways that facilitate growth in the long-term and allow for the distribution of the proceeds of that growth to the poorest citizens.