"Afghan aid misspent: Oxfam report"

First, skim-read this extract from The Vancouver Sun...
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Several aid workers criticized the multi-tier contracting system used by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington's central aid co-ordinator.

"You have contract after subcontract after subcontract, which just kills everything," said a senior employee of a USAID contractor. The report says many contractors are widely regarded as "absorbing a huge volume of funds in consultant costs," while delivering a finished product or service that's often of questionable quality or relevance.

Some projects are also "supply-driven" — meaning they're imposed from the top down, when there isn't always demand or need at the grassroots level. In one example, about $6 million of U.S. aid was spent on developing an Afghan women's business federation, but it failed, largely because "there were no credible ground-level women's business associations," the report said.

In some sectors, U.S. aid-delivering agencies seem to lack strategy and co-ordination, the report said. In an example given by one aid worker, 15 U.S. agencies worked in the energy sector, each with its own vision. Another aid worker told how two separate contractors, both funded by USAID, by chance discovered they were doing virtually the same project, in the same place.

The Oxfam criticism follows a recent report by the American Academy of Diplomacy, which said staff cuts at USAID over the past two decades had severely undercut its ability to manage aid contracts.
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Which is all sad enough, but now tell me, how is that any different to the way the UK government wastes our taxpayer billions? It would be nice if we could persuade Oxfam to issue a similarly damning report on government spending in the UK.