Hurricane hiatus

Overseas aid’s funding farce

BY RULING that Britain cannot use its overseas aid budget to help victims of Hurricane Irma in the Caribbean, the OECD – the meddlesome Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development – is making it even harder to justify 0.7 per cent of this country’s hard-earned GDP being allocated to the world’s most needy.

The fact that Anguilla, Turks and Caicos and also the British Virgin Islands do not meet the OECD’s criteria because their incomes are too high is ridiculous. Not all Caribbean residents are billionaire tycoons like Sir Richard Branson. Their inhabitants include many people who have been left destitute with literally nothing – why should they not receive the kind of support afforded to victims of natural disasters in Africa and Asia?

And this row masks another fundamental point. These are British Overseas Territories and it should be up to this Government – and not others – to determine how emergency and humanitarian relief is funded. After all, it remains a source of bemusement to taxpayers, and all those who have paid the price for the austerity of the past decade, that the Department for International Development is always involved in a frantic scramble at the end of the financial year to find sufficient projects to support.

For, while Britain – as one of the world’s leading economies – should be leading by example when it comes to aid commitments and the plight of the world’s poor, Ministers, and organisations like the OECD, should not lose sight of the timeless adage that charity does, in fact, begin at home and, in this instance, with Hurricane Irma’s helpless victims.