Public Perceptions of International Development and Support for Aid in the UK: Results of a Qualitative Enquiry

Abstract

SummaryAid budgets face immense pressure -despite overseas aid being critical for poverty alleviation in developing countries and the explicit commitments of the world's industrialised countries to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Public support for international development and aid will play a key role. Will the public become unsure about the UK's aid budget when they begin to feel cuts in government expenditure at home? How well equipped are we to 'sell' the UK's aid programme to a sceptical public in times of economic austerity? This working paper presents the results of a qualitative enquiry into public perceptions of international development and aid in the UK. Using data from the Mass Observation Project (MOP) at the University of Sussex, the authors investigate the views of 185 members of the general public.The study finds that, while people can conjure up ideas of why poverty exists, they know very little about the confluence of factors that actually drive poverty and/or the daily lives of the poor. Thus, poverty is seen as caused primarily by bad governments and natural disasters, almost as a stereotype. People have major doubts about the effectiveness of aid, perhaps reflecting the fact that they tend to be much better at picturing aid 'failure' than aid 'success'. Nonetheless, there is support for aid in principle; people think that the UK has a responsibility to help the poor in developing countries, primarily on ethical grounds. This research has clear implications for the way in which the UK communicates with the British public about aid and development and the authors suggest a more considered approach that recognises the complexities of aid and is honest about what works and what doesn't. The paper concludes with a call for further research to fill the knowledge gaps that still exist about the drivers of public support for development and how those drivers can be influenced.

“A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep”? Understanding Public Support for Aid: The Case of the United Kingdom

“…DFID's tracking surveys and a number of previous qualitative studies (for example Darnton, 2009Darnton, , 2011Henson et al, 2010) provide strong evidence that the UK public see poverty in developing countries as being caused by factors within those countries themselves, including poor governance, conflict, socio-cultural factors, fertility rates, etc. By far, corruption is considered the main antecedent of poverty, with over 50% of respondents to DFID's tracking survey in both September 2009 and February 2010 providing this as a spontaneous response.…”

“…Knowledge of the level and nature of aid likewise tends to be lacking (see for example TNS, 2009TNS, , 2010. For example, there is evidence that members of the public tend to grossly over-estimate the amount spent by the UK government on aid to developing countries (see for example Action Aid, 2006), while at the same time closely associating aid with humanitarian assistance (Darnton, 2009;Henson, Lindstrom, Haddad, & Mulmi, 2010;Riddell, 2007).…”

“…By far, corruption is considered the main antecedent of poverty, with over 50% of respondents to DFID's tracking survey in both September 2009 and February 2010 providing this as a spontaneous response. 4 The existing literature highlights widespread public perceptions of corruption and wastage in the use of aid (Chong & Gradstein, 2008;Henson et al, 2010;Paxton & Knack, 2008). Indeed, 57% of respondents to DFID's public opinion tracking survey in February 2010 agreed that "corruption in poor country governments makes it pointless donating" (TNS, 2010).…”

“…Further, 53% agreed that "most financial aid to developing countries is wasted". Corruption and wastage are also dominant themes in qualitative research on public attitudes to aid in the United Kingdom (Darnton, 2009(Darnton, , 2011Henson et al, 2010).…”

“…In many cases, however, they fail to provide coherent evidence on the direction of causal relations, with significant inter-study variation in the sign and/or magnitude of measured relations. As a result, extensive use was made of prior qualitative research on attitudes to development and aid in the United Kingdom (Henson et al, 2010) to guide the model specification. Table 1 itemizes the dependent and explanatory variables in the binary probit model.…”