How gallant of them!

Tories advocate watchdog to monitor aid impact

Larry Elliott
Monday June 4, 2007
The Guardian

The Conservatives last night called for this week's G8 summit in Germany to create a new international body to measure the effectiveness of aid spending as they warned that much of the west's development budget was being badly used.

Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary said Tony Blair should used Britain's position as the most effective aid spender in the G8 to put pressure on other rich countries to make better use of the resources earmarked for tackling global poverty.
...
The Conservatives have already announced plans for an independent aid watchdog to scrutinise British aid, and Mr Mitchell believes that, if successful, it could be used as the template for an international monitoring body.

He added that there would be a built-in international dimension to his new body for assessing UK spending, since so much of British aid went through multilateral channels such as the World Bank, or was used in partnership with other bilateral donors.

All those trips to aid recipient nations - wouldn't they just love it!