Throwing money at foreign countries does nothing to keep migrants out

Telegraph

29-07-2025

Does foreign aid reduce migration? This has been a major question among academics and politicians for decades, as higher-income countries have tried to stem the flow of legal and illegal immigrants from lower-income countries.
The argument runs that migrants are driven by both push and pull factors. Push factors in their countries of origin can include local insecurity or a bad economy. Pull factors in their destination countries can include flexible labour markets or state welfare. Therefore, if foreign aid can address some of these issues, potential migrants will supposedly be able to focus on achieving economic success at home rather than leaving.
However, some have criticised this theory: the economic gap between high and low-income countries is so great that it is very difficult for any amount of aid to create the conditions needed to prevent people leaving. Indeed, some have referred to a so-called 'migration hump', by which they mean that low income countries which get rich enough often end up having more emigration, not less. This is because more people then have the money to afford to move to the West.
We can see this with the Vietnamese, who make up one of the largest national groups crossing the Channel on small boats. Vietnam has been very economically successful over the last two decades and living standards have risen significantly. Nonetheless, life in Vietnam is still poorer than in Britain, so people have a strong incentive to leave if they can.
In order to reach a level of economic success that would make leaving truly unattractive, developing countries need to more or less achieve parity with the West. In the 1950s, South Korea was poorer than many Sub-Saharan African countries.
Through hard work and good leadership, they now have comparable lives to Westerners, and there are few illegal Korean immigrants as a result. However, it's unrealistic to imagine that most countries will achieve this, or that foreign aid can be primarily responsible.
On the contrary, there has been widespread criticism of the foreign aid industry for getting countries hooked on charity rather than letting them do the hard work of developing themselves. Those countries which get the most aid have often been recipients for decades, and look to be so for many decades yet to come. The idea that a few million or even billion in foreign aid will reduce immigration to Britain is therefore unrealistic.
Indeed, one major study by the University of Essex found that foreign aid did reduce the desire of people in the Gambia to emigrate, but that as soon as the foreign aid project ended, the Gambians involved went straight back to wanting to leave. There is neither the money nor the will for the West to prop up the economies of the developing world to a level sufficient to prevent people wanting to leave.
The announcement by the Government last year that they would spend £100 million on foreign aid to reduce root causes of migration came at the same time as their plan to smash the gangs. It seems likely that this was the carrot to the law enforcement stick. With the number of those crossing the Channel on small boats continuing to rise, it is clear that both have failed.
Britain cannot fix the whole world. However, we can control our own borders. This will be much more effective and cost-effective. This is controversial to some, because it will mean tackling international law, with measures such as leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, those who are worried should take heart that president Trump has expressed a willingness to jettison old international agreements that no longer work. There is now an appetite at the highest levels for change.
There is also a strong humanitarian case for doing so. Our current porous borders allow criminal gangs to ply their trade. Every year people die taking the dangerous journey; some of them are women and children.
So great has the cost of dealing with illegal immigrants become that successive governments have taken money from the foreign aid budget to pay for the hotels needed to keep legal immigrants in. Regaining control of our borders isn't just a political necessity; it's a moral one.