There is a whole culture of traveling around that would probably be seriously imperiled if all the expenses were immediately published. This can be done very easily by publishing all costs and adding a short explanation about the reasons for the travel.

I have been looking at how the large Canadian crown corporation IDRC has managed the $5.2 million it was awarded by the Gates Foundation to promote tobacco control in Africa: in my opinion there is a lot of traveling, much too much. It will be interesting to see if this will be part of the external review that has just started but the culture of “extensive travel” is so pervasive…

The same goes for the Bloomberg Initiative. Since there is absolutely no control…

Wasteful traveling is not limited to the staff of the aid’s agencies: many “african advocates” are “invited” to travel extensively (and very expansively). It’s meetings after meetings and international conferences without any significant reporting of what (if anything) was achieved but many people indeed did travel and met for x days in an hotel.

The Canadian system of “proactive disclosure” was a step in the good direction but it is much too limited and apparently there is strong opposition to increase the number of people whose traveling expenses would be monitored.

With the internet the amount of traveling should decrease drastically and the proactive disclosure should apply to everybody: it would be good for the planet and good for the budgets.

(1) The excesses are one reason that it can be hard to make an argument (at least in US red states) that more aid and more generosity is needed. Why should my tax dollars on a $40,000 US per year income go to finance the high life for some dude spending a week of every month traveling the world in business class and staying at top hotels? Tough to answer.
(2) It’s true, not all agencies are the same. Peace Corps people and VSOs lived pretty close to lower middle class lives in Malawi when I was there in 1995. Whereas a EU couple I know in Bangkok have one of the biggest and nicest apartments I’ve ever seen in Bangkok now in 2009.
(3) With the availability of easy and reliable video conferencing and genuine idea sharing taking place online now – seems to me that the amount of air travel is absurd. We shouldn’t just be asking “why business class?” we should also be asking, “why do you need to go there? what’s wrong with skype’s free video?” I know sometimes you really do have be there in person, but a lot of times you just don’t. Is it possible that many of these trips are more about the joy of travel, the self-importance of the traveler, the way things have always been done, or seeing friends?

There are of course other excesses in typical aid budgets. I was virtually lynched by my Malawi team when I told them I wouldn’t entertain purchase of 40 tumble driers! And yes, the entire team of UK staff lived in accommodation of a standard far higher than they were used to back home. And then there are those individuals who arrive in post with five kids, all of whom suddenly need an expensive boarding school education. If this was bad in DfID, it was far worse in the EC Delegation, USAID and in the Bank. Houses like mansions, 4×4 vehicles provided (DFID staff at least had to purchase their own) and mileages never questioned (so thousands of miles on private journeys, all charged to the aid budget).

Now that I have time to think about it, there was much that Heads of Office could have done in Southern Africa to ensure that precious aid resources were not so obviously diverted. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But then we did have many other preoccupations.

Trust you are well.

I used to work for an aid agency and must confess that I took a number of business class flights. I also worked overseas and was initially baffled by the extra money that I was given for doing so. It meant that I saved a lot of money in the three years I was away – but it’s a million miles away from what aid agencies are all about.

In the country I worked in, the rumour in the office was that the head of the office’s apartment cost $10,000 a month – mine cost $3,000 (which is itself a lot of money). This could immunise a lot of children, or pay for a lot of schoolbooks.

Since the very same consultants often cost more (on a pro rata basis) than the DFID staff they work with, you have to wonder about the ‘productivity’ argument.

My main point is that we should publish the details of all these perks. I think it would become clear pretty quickly which are defensible and which are not.

I actually wonder how much of these perks are rumor. I worked for UNFPA back in the day, and we flew economy class, and were jealous of UNICEF who flew business. And I always heard it was DfID that provided allowances domestic staff salaries…