BRITAIN exceeded its target of spending 0.7% of national income on foreign aid last year, according to government figures.
Accounts quietly released by the Department for International Development (DfID) last month provisionally show spending in 2014-15 was £11.8bn — equivalent to 0.71% of gross national income.
The figures follow criticism of the government for frittering away millions of pounds on seemingly trivial aid projects, such as a scheme to find mates for tropical fish in Madagascar.
Annexes to the DfID accounts, which contain a breakdown of countries that have received UK aid through bilateral programmes or multilateral agencies such as the UN or EU, reveal almost £530m was given to four of the five fast-emerging “Brics” economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in 2013.
Although Britain ended its bilateral programme for China in 2011, the country still received £21.6m in UK aid in 2013, via a multilateral deal. Critics note China has long been funding its own projects in Africa.
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India received at least £430m, of which £269m came through bilateral aid. Indian ministers have previously claimed they do not need the money, describing the sum as “peanuts”. DfID officials point out that India has a third of the world’s poorest people and that traditional financial grants to India have been replaced by UK technical assistance.
Two other Brics nations, Brazil and South Africa, respectively received £15m and £63m in aid from Britain in 2013. Russia received none.
The DfID accounts also show that at least £410m in UK aid ended up in European countries in 2013. Many of these, including Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia, have been ravaged by war and will be regarded as legitimate recipients of aid.
More surprising is the £205m in multilateral aid handed to Turkey, via the European Commission, for political and economic reform. As well as having the second-largest army in Nato, Turkey is eager to join the EU. A further £5.5m in aid was given to Turkey in 2013 by the Foreign Office for similar reasons.
The top five civil servants at DfID each have combined pay and benefits packages worth more than £150,000. Mark Lowcock, the permanent secretary, has a pension pot valued at £1.1m.
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DfID said pay is decided within civil service rules and that spending figures would be finalised later this year.
It said: “Britain’s commitment to development has saved countless lives. Our relentlessly robust and strategic approach is achieving value for the British taxpayer. We have some of the lowest overheads in Whitehall and have cut the number of countries that receive direct aid to ensure that money is well managed and focused on the people that need it most.”