The Guardian: The Guardian view on international aid: less fury, more light
Editorial Board

“The assaults on Britain’s international development budget and the parallel assault on salaries that some charities pay their chief executives are being merged into a single weapon of attack. The aim is to unpick the legal commitment to dedicating 0.7 percent of GDP to aid after the next election. … [T]he attacks of the past month have reached extraordinary depths. And, while not all the claims are justified, some of them are. The voluntary sector has to do more to get out and explain why its chief executives and other senior officers are worth paying four or five times more than the median wage, and at the same time charities need to develop a culture of openness about projects that work, and the ones that don’t. … The question of aid effectiveness, the second prong of the current attack, is even more contested. … The international development secretary, Priti Patel, grandstands her skepticism about aid … and is cheered on by her allies in the media. The NGOs that often rely on Department for International Development contracts for their survival keep their heads down for fear of being named and shamed. Development matters. So stop the name calling and start a constructive conversation about how to do it better” (12/18).