The International Development Select Committee has published a report looking at how the UK Government spends its international aid budget.

The Committee says that Department for International Development (DFID) is  channelling more funds through multilateral organisations, like the UN and World Bank, even though they have higher administrative costs.

Chair of the Committee, Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Bruce MP, also said the Committee was “worried that pressure to meet targets to increase overseas development aid could lead to DFID making poor spending decisions.”

Commenting on the report, David Hall-Matthews, Director of Publish What You Fund, said:

“The UK Government should rightly focus on efficient use of aid funds, as the Select Committee Report recommends.  But what we need now is absolute transparency on where this money is being spent and how it is disbursed, so it can be traced down the delivery chain and demonstrate where it has indeed been effective.

“DFID has led the way on aid transparency, as have multilateral donors such as the World Bank and EuropeAid, and we are confident this will continue to be the case as more donors publish to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard.”