UK aid is losing its ability to change the world because of Tory-LibDem mismanagement, Labour's shadow international development secretary Jim Murphy has warned.
Mr Murphy accused ministers of caring more about getting cash "out the door" than its impact.
He said: "Under Labour the Department for International development (DFID) helped change the world, but that ability is being lost because of a culture of measuring success by input instead of outcomes.
"DFID should have higher ambitions than just to act as the charitable arm of the British Government (and) development should be about much more than simply getting money out the door. It is about using the size and scale of the UK development budget to bring about social justice across world borders. I want to see change not charity."
His criticism comes amid growing calls for overseas aid money to be diverted to help people struggling with floods across England. There is also increasing public debate about the kinds of countries and programmes that the UK development budget should fund.
The Coalition Government has already bowed to critics and vowed to halt aid to India, a country that is building its own space programme, by 2015.
Central to Mr Murphy's criticism is that DFID, which has an office in East Kilbride, is too focused on hitting targets for handing out aid instead of thinking about how to change the world.
Among his concerns is the department's treatment of the target to spend 0.7% of UK GDP on overseas aid, which he warns is starting to be seen as a result in itself, not a means to an end.
A DFID spokesman said that NGOs and development agencies around the world "acknowledge this government's leadership on development".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article