European Aid to Egypt ‘Ineffective’

LONDON â€" A $1.35 billion European Union aid program to promote good governance and human rights in Egypt has been “well-intentioned but ineffective,” according to a critical report by the alliance’s auditors.

Around half the aid, which went directly to the Egyptian treasury in the form of budget support, was largely unaccounted for, according to the report.

Other funds to support human rights and democracy had failed in their objectives in the face of the negative attitude of the Egyptian authorities.

The findings published on Tuesday by the European Court of Auditors are likely to feed into a wider debate on the efficacy of aid to countries with a legacy of corruption and human rights abuses.

The report covered a seven-year period beginning in 2007 that spanned the overthrow of the regime of Hosni Mubarak and its replacement by the government of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s Islamist president.

“Following the uprising no new major initiatives were taken to tackle key human rights issues and the measures taken have had little impact to date,” according to the auditors.

The report comes at a time when Europe’s foreign aid commitments are under pressure from critics who say the money would be better spent on tackling austerity than on funding allegedly corrupt regimes.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, came under renewed fire on Tuesday for pledging to maintain the country’s aid budget despite making huge spending cuts at home.

While Mr. Cameron has defended Britain’s aid as a matter of national interest as well as morality, other E.U. governments have shown greater readiness to cut back on spending.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in April that aid budgets were down by four percent among the world’s richer developed economies. In countries that have been worst affected by the euro crisis, such as Spain, aid spending was reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Tuesday’s report may be seized on by advocates of further cuts in aid. However, the main target of the auditors’ criticisms was not the level of assistance but rather the lack of control over how the money was spent.

It said E.U. officials had failed to take decisive action to ensure accountability within an Egyptian system characterized by a lack of budgetary transparency, an ineffective audit function and endemic corruption.

On the human rights front, it said, officials had failed to use the financial and political leverage at their disposal to counteract the intransigence of the Egyptian authorities.

Karel Pinxten, the Belgian author of the report, said “The softly, softly approach has not worked, and the time has come for a more focused approach which will produce meaningful results and guarantee better value for the European taxpayers’ money.”

Should the Europeans cut their losses and suspend aid to countries such as Egypt? Are aid budgets too high in an era of austerity, or should rich countries be spending even more to encourage reform? Let us know your views.