The Telegraph: Aid to despot must stop

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Telegraph View: Andrew Mitchell, the Development Secretary, must cancel aid to Rwanda's president Paul Kagame immediately.

How many guest speakers at the Conservative Party conference have been accused of helping an indicted war criminal to lay waste to a swathe of Africa? Step forward President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, a plausible and ruthless autocrat, who was favoured with a special invitation to address the party faithful in 2007. Even at the time, this was an odd decision. Mr Kagame’s subsequent behaviour casts doubt over whether he is fit to have any kind of relationship with Britain.

According to United Nations investigators, Rwanda has supplied weapons and volunteers to rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have inflicted yet more bloodshed on that benighted country and driven 470,000 people from their homes. The man behind the uprising is Bosco Ntaganda, a renegade general popularly known as the “terminator”, who appears supremely unconcerned about his indictment by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes. If the UN is right and Rwanda has been helping this warlord, then Mr Kagame’s behaviour is unconscionable. America clearly believes the UN: Washington has ended military aid for Rwanda.

And Britain? We are Rwanda’s largest bilateral aid donor, with a programme worth £75 million this year. Unusually, Britain gives Mr Kagame “general budgetary support”, meaning that £37 million goes straight into his coffers.  

Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, has “delayed” a payment of £16 million. Given the gravity of the charges, this inadequate response suggests that Britain is still inhibited by loyalty to the despot and embarrassment over having favoured him for so long. The idea that any leader who promotes murder and plunder should receive funding is abhorrent. Mr Mitchell should cancel aid to Rwanda's government immediately...

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From seeds to simcards – what’s missing from Britain’s offer to the world on development

Click here for full story on Overseas Development Institute

Andrew Mitchell’s speech on ‘Beyond Aid’ at the Wellcome Trust last night proved interesting timing. With the competence of governments, and particularly European governments, being severely tested at present, his core message struck an important chord: while aid and government matters hugely for development, development is also about much more: it’s about the private sector and wealth creation; it’s about world class research and the ability to turn good ideas into action (from ‘seeds to simcards’); it’s about a vibrant philanthropic and charitable sector supporting and funding innovation (aka the Wellcome Trust); it’s about the rules of the game that root out corruption and recover stolen assets on behalf of developing economies; and it’s about the everyday acts of ‘global-facing citizens’ who are motivated to support and work on behalf of those worse off than themselves.

The speech fizzed with examples of the way in which development draws on this powerful combination of private, public and citizen-based action: ‘Britain’s offer to the world’, Mitchell said, ‘comes from all of us and not just government’.

Click here for full story on Overseas Development Institute

Hamid Kharzai must go - he is corrupt as hell ! Andrew Mitchell accidentally reveals Secret British Policy document!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Mitchell rejects allegation that UK aid is going to Islamists

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS ON SPECTATOR.CO.UK

Yesterday, Andrew Mitchell was the toast of the broadcasters. They have turned on him to an extent today. The news that portions of the £52.25 million given in emergency aid to the starving masses in the Horn of Africa will be distributed in areas controlled by al-Shabaab has forced Mitchell onto the defensive. “We shall have no dealings with al-Shabaab,” he said, and then added that the aid will reach its intended recipients by means other than collusion with the jihadists.

This is an embarrassing moment for Mitchell and, of course, it is vital that money and supplies do not fall into the hands of well-fed fighters. However, it is worth pointing out that Mitchell has always intended to distribute aid in al-Shabab controlled areas of Somalia. In a speech made last year in which he recast the role of DfID as an agent of soft power, he insisted that aid must be used to improve stability in the area, arguing that western generosity would deprive the extremists of their anti-western memes. Food, education and opportunity would replace poverty, ignorance, and Kalashnikovs. So even in this minute of emergency, Mitchell is pursuing long-term policy goals, for better or worse.

United Kingdom's DFID blasts UNDP and Helen Clark for lack of tangible reforms and a politicized Executive Board - its continuing funding UNCERTAIN

UNDP’s mandate covers poverty reduction and achieving the MDGs, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, environment and sustainable development as well as cross cutting themes such as women’s empowerment and capacity building. It spends over $5 billion a year (receiving $1.1 billion in core and $3.9 billion in non-core funding) through 5 regional and 166 country offices.

	COMMENT
Contribution to UK development objectives	Satisfactory
	+	UNDP is central to the delivery the MDGs. It has a direct programmatic role on a number of MDGs.
	+	UNDP’s mandate and operations are aligned with DFID’s strategic priorities, most critically in governance and security and delivery of the MDGs.
	+	There is strong leadership and there are good incentive mechanisms on gender, but strengthened delivery depends on continued effort and building skills across the organisation.
	_	Evidence gathered at country level was highly critical of UNDP’s ability to deliver results. Its delivery can be undermined by staffing issues and bureaucratic processes.
	_	Its performance in fragile states is mixed. It has reasonable training and a range of guidance and analytical tools but struggles to fill posts.
	_	There is no evidence that the Climate Strategy was directly guiding resource allocation decisions
Organisational strengths	Satisfactory
	+	UNDP has a strong array of partnerships across the UN system, with member states and with donors. It is uniquely placed to support partner governments and incorporate beneficiary voice.
	+	UNDP has a clear and transparent resource allocation system. Its financial systems allow longer term commitments.
	+	UNDP has good disclosure practices. It is committed to IATI and has good member state accountability.
	_	UNDP’s partnership with the World Bank needs to be more effective, particularly in fragile and crisis-affected countries.
	_	UNDP’s near universal mandate means its technical resources are spread very thinly. The Board does not provide strategic direction. HR management is weak. It has a weak results chain.
	_	There is limited evidence of active senior management consideration of cost control. Country evidence points to mixed progress on demonstrating cost-efficiency.
Capacity for positive change	Uncertain
	+	UNDP’s leadership has articulated a commitment to reform and there is past evidence of some progress on reform.
	_	The Executive Board is politicised and there is a lack of consensus on the key areas for reform. It is not clear that current plans for change will deliver the required depth and breadth of reform.

MDTF fails to provide access and reporting to Donors on use of their funds in Myanmar, Iran and DPR Korea

The question is:

CAN ANDREW MITCHELL HELD UNITED NATIONS ACCOUNTABLE ?

HOW SERIOUS IS HE?

In accordance with the UN rules and MoU on Multi Donor Trust Funds (MDTFs) and Joint Programmes (JPs), signed between various UN Agencies, Donors and MDTF Office (Bisrat Aklilu is Exec Coordinator), each programme approved and funded by the MDTFs and JPs was required to provide annual narrative and financial progress reports.

The problem is that UNDP does not want the world and most importantly the tax-payers from Donor Countries to know exactly where their money are being spent in countries like North Korea (DPR Korea), Myanmar, Iran and Zimbabwe.

Everyone that wants to go to MDTF's Web Site, would find it impossible to access any information about these countries. Click here to visit their website: http://mdtf.undp.org.

UNDP has promised that would provide "full transparency over use of programes and projects" and that would have instructed all its Country Offices to post in their respective websites detailed informations about their projects/programmes expenditures.(Ad Melkert's Letter to Amb. Mark Wallace of USUN)

Meanwhile the UNDG Protocol on MDTF Reporting promised the following:

1. Each Participating UN Organization will provide the AA with the statements and reports prepared in accordance with its accounting and reporting procedures, as set forth in the MOU and SAA of the particular MDTF /JP/ One UN Fund.

2. The AA will in turn provide the donors and the Steering Committee (in the case of One UN Funds, the AA will provide to the Resident Coordinator who will provide them to the donors and the Steering Committee) with the consolidated statements and reports, based on submissions received from each Participating UN Organization prepared in accordance with the schedule set forth in the applicable MOU and/or SAA of the particular MDTF/JP/ One UN Fund.

3. This consolidation of reports by the AA will comprise of a synthesis of the individual reports submitted by each of the Participating UN Organizations along a format agreed upon with the Participating UN Organizations (and Resident Coordinators in case of One UN Funds) and donors. The AA’s Progress Report consolidation will be exclusively based on information and data contained in the individual progress reports and financial statements submitted by Participating UN Organizations and does not constitute an evaluation of the MDTF/JP/ One UN Fund nor the performance of the Participating UN Organizations. The AA will submit the report it has consolidated to the Participating UN Organizations and the Steering Committee (Resident Coordinator for One UN Funds) for review and approval before submitting it to donors.

4. Since donors reserve the right to discontinue future contributions to MDTFs/JPs/ One UN Funds if reporting obligations are not met as per the signed SAA, the AA will notify the Steering Committee and work to ensure that delays in the submissions of narrative and financial reports by a Participating UN Organization will not jeopardize the integrity and future activities of the MDTF/JP/ One UN Fund. In case an agency consistently does not meet its reporting obligations, the specific case should be brought by the AA or the UN Chair/ Co-chair of the Steering Committee to the ASG group (Advisory Group of UNDG) for resolution.

Seem that once again UNDP is trying to hide from the public how they spend their 15 Billion Dollars every year.

Maybe Andrew Mitchell of United Kingdom should start his inquiry on how British Tax Payers money is spent with UNDP's MDTF...

The Conservatives and aid: Tough love

guardian.co.uk

Last time the Conservatives were in government, there was not even a minister in cabinet with responsibility for international development. If only for that reason, Andrew Mitchell is a welcome break with tradition. Yesterday he promised a transparent, accountable and empowering aid agenda that he claimed was as new as his party's discovery of the importance of international development. This morning the prime minister himself is repeating the claim on these pages. They overstate their case.

But Mr Mitchell – who shadowed the job for over four years before sliding into the ministerial limo – knows that development objectives are hard to achieve. When, as we report today, the G8 club of rich countries looks ready to bury the Gleneagles targets, and aid itself is faced with an international barrage of criticism that questions its very existence, selling the moral imperative of aid to a sceptical party will be harder still.

The Cameron-Mitchell silver bullet is an independent watchdog and a "transparency guarantee" that will provide the information to allow taxpayers in Britain to monitor the UK's aid effectiveness. Rather like New Labour's approach to the public sector, this government believes the best way of protecting spending is to prove to taxpayers that it is money well spent. But measuring outcomes can result in a distorting bureaucracy that misses the complexity of a problem and delivers not so much results as unintended consequences. Meanwhile, from the UN downwards the aid sector has been pondering for some years the relationship between accountability and effectiveness. In this new atmosphere, agencies acknowledge that it does not take many bad people to subvert the best of efforts to do good.

Last month the defence secretary, Liam Fox, said British troops were not in Afghanistan "for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country". Yesterday Mr Mitchell appeared to suggest that they were. Straddling the awkward cleavage between development as a moral imperative and development as a tool of foreign policy is only going to become more difficult in the harsh wind of austerity. Other players in the development sector are watching to make sure that the commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid is not subverted by siphoning some off for projects that are less about ending poverty than promoting Britain's interests abroad. And yesterday's promise to observe the vague OECD criteria for what counts as aid spending is not reassuring. In opposition, the Tories used their conversion to the importance of aid as proof that they were nasty no more. It's a card that plays both ways.

UK Conservatives demand transparency and accountability for their Tax Payers money - while Susan Rice of USUN can't find that "word" in her vocabulary

In a total contrast from US Mission to the UN (USUN), already in the first few weeks in job the UK Government is challenging the United Nations and the rest of multilateral organizations with Transparency and Accountability.

Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary has announced a new UKaid Transparency Guarantee to ensure that full information on all DFID's spending is made available to public.

Mitchell, who was speaking at the launch of Oxfam's report on 21st Century Aid at the Royal Society, gave this pledge to UK Tax-payers:

“To the British taxpayer I say this: our aim is to spend every penny of every pound of your money wisely and well. We want to squeeze every last ounce of value from it. We owe you that.

“And I promise you as well that in future, when it comes to international development, we will want to see hard evidence of the impact your money makes. Not just dense and impenetrable budget lines but clear evidence of real effect.”

Mitchell's words have already caused panic across some powerful UN Agencies who have called for a "pre-sessional informal brainstorming meeting this morning (June 07)" and review their past and current "affinity" with UK Government, and strategize how to "stall any transparency request" from Mitchell. In the words of a powerful Chief Finance Officer of one of these Agencies: - "we've dealt with Americans before ...certainly wont be difficult to push back Brits as well".

What a difference from Ambassador Susan Rice of US Mission to the United Nations (USUN), who not only seem lost in translation and but has deleted from her vocabulary the words "Transparency and Accountability".

Maybe Susan Rice need to attend a "Capacity building" workshop from DFID and learn a thing or two from Andrew Mitchell.

Mitchell the New UK's Aid Minister sends chilling message across United Nations and Multilateral Agencies: Demanding transparency and accountability

British taxpayers will see exactly how and where overseas aid money is being spent and a new independent watchdog will help ensure this aid is good value for money, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has announced.

In his first major speech as Development Secretary, Mr Mitchell said he had taken the key steps towards creating an independent aid watchdog to ensure value for money. He also announced a new UK Aid Transparency Guarantee to ensure that full information on all DFID’s spending is published on the departmental website.

The information will also be made available to the people who benefit from aid funding: communities and families living in the world’s poorest countries.

These moves come as part of a wider drive to refocus DFID’s work so British taxpayers’ money is spent transparently and on key priority issues such as maternal mortality and disease prevention.

In Mr Mitchell’s speech, delivered at the Royal Society with Oxfam and Policy Exchange, he argued that overseas aid is both morally right and in Britain’s national interest but that taxpayers need to see more evidence their money is being spent well.

Andrew Mitchell said:

“We need a fundamental change of direction – we need to focus on results and outcomes, not just inputs. Aid spending decisions should be made on the basis of evidence, not guesswork. That is why we have taken the first steps towards creating a new independent aid watchdog.

“The UK Aid Transparency Guarantee will also help to create a million independent aid watchdogs – people around the world who can see where aid money is supposed to be going – and shout if it doesn’t get there.”

Andrew Mitchell highlighted the results of well-spent aid, saying:

“Development is good for our economy, our safety, our health, our future. It is, quite simply, tremendous value for money: the best return on investment that you’ll find anywhere in government.

“British aid pays for five million children in developing countries to go to primary school every day. That’s roughly the same number as go to primary school in Britain yet it costs only 2.5 per cent of what we spend here. That’s real value for money.”

And he gave this pledge to UK taxpayers:

“To the British taxpayer I say this: our aim is to spend every penny of every pound of your money wisely and well. We want to squeeze every last ounce of value from it. We owe you that.

“And I promise you as well that in future, when it comes to international development, we will want to see hard evidence of the impact your money makes. Not just dense and impenetrable budget lines but clear evidence of real effect.”