There will be pain. There will be anger. There will be despair. But there will not, at least initially, be a real life and death consequence as a result of most of the CSR. Most of it. But not all of it.
There will be pain. There will be anger. There will be despair. But there will not, at least initially, be a real life and death consequence as a result of most of the CSR. Most of it. But not all of it.
It’s gone without much comment on the whole but the doubling to £3.6 billion of aid going directly into countries at war or on the brink of it, really does get us into spending priorities where questions of life or death are very much to the fore.
Critically, this decision means less aid going to countries which have just failed, which simply have a lot of poor people in them. This is one side of a double-whammy being painfully perceived in aid circles and beyond.
Because the other side of the coin means that more aid is going to places like Afghanistan. The suspicion cannot be avoided that security rather than aid priorities are driving spending in this vital area. And this really matters and not simply for Afghans.
We have seen a number of high-profile kidnappings and murders of westerners working for NGOs in Afghanistan in recent months. The circumstances will always differ from case to case. But the political landscape of aid donation in Afghanistan does not. And that landscape has for too long been dominated by the military being involved in aid and regeneration projects. In other words the thrust of much of the aid work in the country has been militarised.
The latest spending shift can only underline this dangerous trend. Dangerous? Yes, because the perception among many Afghans is that aid will be delivered by the military and ultimately for military ends in terms of security.
Into this already dangerous situation come international aid organisations who must, somehow, continue to do their job in a political atmosphere poisoned by the suspicioun that many foreign aid workers are actually serving the meeds of the miilitary rather than their own.
It does not matter how wrong-headed this perception might be. That point is that it is there and firmly rooted in the minds of many. That being so the latest spending shift in prioirities will do little to dispel that perception and much to reinforce it.
Dangerous times for aid workers in Afghanistan just became a little more perilous.