The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report criticising the government’s failure to measure the effectiveness of its funding for international development programmes.
While the Department for International Development (DfID) still spends the majority of Overseas Development Aid, the government has channelled more of it through other departments in recent years, with 28 per cent spent by other bodies in 2017.
The report says this wider allocation of ODA has created “additional risks”, with departments less experienced in aid possibly not challenging the value for money of the spending “as rigorously”.
The report says departments need to improve the transparency of their ODA expenditure, casting doubt on the government’s ability to meet its target of each department being independently assessed as “very good” or “good” in terms of transparency by 2020.
See more at: https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/nao-criticises-government-s-lack-of-transparency-over-aid-spending.html