UK must tighten grip on Afghan aid programme - watchdog

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain must tighten oversight of its aid programme to Afghanistan, worth hundreds of millions of pounds a year, to lessen the risk of losing the money to theft, fraud or corruption, the country's aid watchdog said on Thursday.

Overseas aid is one of the few areas that has been ring-fenced by Britain's coalition government, which has slashed spending elsewhere to tackle a big budget deficit.

But polls show many Britons disagree with protecting foreign aid when many domestic services are being cut. That has made the government determined to show it is getting value for money.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact, set up by the government last year to ensure its overseas aid budget is well spent, gave London's Afghanistan aid programme an "amber-red" mark, meaning the scheme is "not performing well" and needs "significant improvements."

The British government, which has long said it would withdraw the bulk of its 9,500 troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, describes the country as "one of the UK's top foreign policy priorities."

It is the world's fourth-largest donor to Afghanistan, channelling 178 million pounds ($280 million) a year to the country for each of the four years from 2011-12.

The watchdog said the British government did not have sufficiently robust financial and performance monitoring systems in place to manage its programmes in Afghanistan.

"As a result, DFID (Britain's Department for International Development) is exposed to a significant risk of leakage," it said, defining leakage as "the loss or diversion of aid monies away from the intended beneficiaries as a result of theft, fraud or corruption."

While the report did not cite any examples of money going astray, it said DFID needed to strengthen its grip and reduce risk by deploying people with more financial and procurement skills.

The watchdog said claims that there was little or no diversion of British aid money "cannot be sustained" and said DFID was not proactive enough in detecting fraud and corruption.

Corruption is common at all levels of Afghan society. In December, a survey by Berlin-based graft watchdog Transparency International rated Afghanistan one of the world's most corrupt countries, ranked equally with Myanmar, and only slightly cleaner than North Korea and Somalia.

Britain channels its Afghan aid through a World Bank fund and through the Asian Development Bank as well as to programmes in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan where the bulk of British troops are based.

Responding to the watchdog's report, a DFID spokesman said: "UK support in Afghanistan is playing a key role in improving the lives of people who remain amongst the poorest in the world, helping to get children into school and improving healthcare."

"We accept that?in such a?challenging environment there are always things we can do better," he said.

Overseas aid is one of the few areas of British government spending set to rise. DFID's budget is set to grow from 7.8 billion pounds in the current financial year to 11.1 billion in 2014/15.

(Editing by Karolina Tagaris)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-must-tighten-grip-afghan-aid-programme-watchdog-000327813.html

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