https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/23/racism-in-aid-sector-is-a-hangover-of-colonialism-says-scathing-report-by-mpsIts report, released on Thursday, found UK staff working under Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) contracts who were overwhelmingly white, were paid significantly more than people hired locally. One UK staff member was paid 10 times more than a locally employed colleague.
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Lorriann Robinson, from international consultancy firm Advocacy Team, told MPs she had seen examples of projects where applying the FCDO’s rates meant it was possible to have a professional with 15 years’ experience working alongside a graduate from the UK with two years’ experience who is paid more. “That is an example of what we would say is a policy that is producing inequities between racial groups,” she said.
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Boards and senior leadership positions in NGOs are dominated by white people and based in high-income countries such as the UK, underpinned by false assumptions that best practice originates in wealthy states, the report said.
Themrise Khan, an international development professional from Pakistan, said aid was “yet another vehicle to indulge in racist practices”.
She said aid was meant to rebuild countries after the end of colonial rule but had ended up being “a vehicle for former colonisers to continue to control most of their former colonists by holding them ransom to aid”.
“If we want racism in aid to end, we must accept the fact that the northern system of aid and everyone in it also abets racism,” Khan said.
This is why I have never been a fan of aid. If you really want to help people in another country, don't send money
to that country, just accept (or, better yet, provide transport for) all refugees
from that country! It really is that simple.
This, the report said, sent a harmful message that the UK does not care about the people affected – many of whom are black, Indigenous and people of colour.
We already knew this.