It is a story that would make even the most hardened Treasury mandarin pause. A young girl forced into marriage in Sierra Leone grows up to become the country’s first lady, championing the fight against the very practice that nearly consumed her. British taxpayers, through the Foreign Office’s aid budget, have been funding this transformation. The narrative is compelling, but as someone who has watched the ebb and flow of development cash for two decades, I cannot help but ask: what is the return on this investment?
Let us examine the balance sheet. The UK has poured millions into Sierra Leone since the end of its civil war, with a focus on governance and women’s rights. The result? A high-profile success story that makes for excellent photo opportunities at the UN. But the hard numbers on forced marriage in Sierra Leone remain stubbornly high. According to UNICEF, 30 per cent of girls are married before 18. That is a market failure on a grand scale. The supply of cultural inertia, the demand for dowries, and the lack of legal enforcement create a pernicious equilibrium that foreign aid cannot easily shift.
Yet the individual story of the first lady is undeniably powerful. It is a reminder that human capital, when unlocked, can generate enormous dividends. But as a financial editor, I worry about moral hazard. If we celebrate one outlier, do we ignore the systemic risks? The opportunity cost of aid is real. Every pound spent on feel-good projects is a pound not spent on infrastructure or trade links that might yield a more sustainable growth trajectory.
The market, I suspect, is already voting with its feet. Private capital flows to Sierra Leone remain anaemic, partly because donors crowd out the private sector. The government’s fiscal position is weak, and gilt yields in London are far more attractive to the risk-averse investor. Meanwhile, the Bank of England is tightening monetary policy to curb inflation, making overseas development assistance a harder sell to a domestic audience struggling with the cost of living.
I do not deny the moral imperative behind aid. But as a steward of the public purse, we must demand efficiency. Is this programme the best use of scarce resources? Or is it a vanity project dressed in the robes of progress? The first lady’s story is a bright spot, but the spread of forced marriage across the portfolio remains too wide. Until we see a material reduction in those grim 30 per cent figures, I remain cautious. The bottom line is that good intentions do not always lead to good outcomes. And in the City, we measure outcomes in pounds and pence.
