Aid and the Environment

Abstract

impudence. Politicians in general, and Ministers in particular, are expected to be expert on a bewildering range of subjects, moving with or without the sure-footedness of the Swiss chamois from peak to distant peak (and occasionally back again). The verb 'expected' may, I concede, be the wrong word. Perhaps what I should say is that it is part of the tolerance of public life that Ministers are allowed to get away with instant displays of authority and expertise. I hope that that semi-confessional beginning will enable me to trade on your tolerance and good will this evening. If that is not the case, I shall take it as an incitement to be more aggressively impudent in the future. I am invited to speak on Aid and the Environment, a subject to which I bring a clutter of prejudices?most of them I trust ofa relatively benign and well-meaning nature. I am not sure whether I am regarded as a member of the faithful when it comes to environmental issues. In a recent article on Green Politicians?and Fve learnt since my days in Belfast in the Northern Ireland Office that a Green Politician means something else on this side of the water?I am afraid that I failed to trouble the scorers. I rated neither praise nor contumely. All I can say is that I mean to be, and think I am, among the moderately enlightened or Be-Greened, not least since I don't think that anyone who is conscious to any degree of the obligations of the present to the future could conceivabiy be anything else. Aid is interference Aid has been the focus of much controversy in the last few years. There are those who argue that it is not needed by the virtuous, and not deserved by the less than virtuous. There are those who say that the only problem is that there is not enough of it. Whatever the arguement, and whatever the point of view, it cannot be denied that Aid is interference. Donors, who have responsiblities to their own tax-payers, want to make sure that their money is wisely and properly spent. Thus, they are bound to have a major interest in the economic policies of the recipient governments. Moreover, Aid donors help to finance agricultural projects which alter the lives ofthe rural poor. They finance roads and dams altering ecosystems. Such interference, direct or indirect, can be good or bad for the people on the receiving end; and it can also be good or bad for the environment in the recipient countries. Any fruitful discussion of the link between Aid and the environment takes us to the very heart of our understanding both of the nature of Aid and of man's impact on the environment. Both those issues have a moral as well as a practical dimension. The judgement on Aid?whether its effects are good or bad?encompasses cause and pretext as well as result. I have always had some sympathy with the great Lord Salisbury's view that it was difficult enough to go about doing right without going about