Aid – Page 15 – Ian Birrell

Forget aid and target inequality

Published in Prospect (November 9th, 2012) Should Britain give aid to India? For a hefty majority of people in this country, the answer is clear: it is absurd […]

Aid / Politics

Warped priorities

Published in The Daily Mail (September 27th, 2012) At home, the talk is all about austerity. One half of the Coalition government holds its annual conference amid talk […]

Africa / Aid / Kenya / Politics

Snouts in the aid trough

First published in The Daily Mail (September 18th, 2012) Three miles from the centre of Nairobi, the bustling capital of Kenya, is a huge, sprawling district called Kibera. […]

Africa / Aid / Congo / Economics / Ethiopia / General / Ghana / Nigeria

Our image of Africa is hopelessly obsolete

Published in The Observer (26th August, 2012) Think of Ethiopia and what do you see. Perhaps a starving child, flies in her eyes and belly distended. Painfully thin adults […]

Aid / Ghana

African village where every household is getting £7,500 from British taxpayers spent on them

Published in The Daily Mail (June 30th, 2012) As I drew up in the bustling village after a long journey, the last 21 miles bouncing along a red […]

Africa / Aid / General

Bob Geldof’s obsession with aid hurt Africa. But now trade is healing the scars

Published in The Independent (May 28th, 2012) I first became aware of Bob Geldof in 1977 when I bought the debut single by The Boomtown Rats. In those […]

Aid / Europe / European Union / Iceland

Iceland owes us billions. Why on earth is the EU giving millions of our money in aid?

Published in The Daily Mail (March 8th, 2012) For all its recent problems, Iceland remains a prosperous place. Visiting there a few months ago, I was struck by […]

Aid

The aid business has grown fat. It’s time there was proper scrutiny

Published in The Spectator (February 18th, 2012) Such a simple question: should Oxfam spend a couple of hundred pounds a month opening up the swimming pool at its […]

Aid / Haiti / World

Haiti and the shaming of the aid zealots

Published in the Daily Mail (January 27th, 2011) The first thing that strikes you is the smell: a sweet, sickly stench that sticks to your skin. It is […]

Africa / Aid / Congo / Rwanda

Monster behind genocide and rape squads

Published in the Daily Mail (July 27th, 2011) Women and children – desperately sick and weak after months on the run – were finally caught by Rwandan army […]

Africa / Aid / Somaliland

The former British colony that shows Africa doesn’t need our millions to flourish

Published in The Mail on Sunday (July 24th, 2011) The Summer Time restaurant was buzzing. On the dusty road outside, new four-wheel drive cars fought for space with […]

Aid

Ten great myths about foreign aid

Published in the Daily Mail (July 7th, 2011) As he pledged to pour hundreds of millions more into propping up Afghanistan, David Cameron accused critics of his foreign […]