{"id":457,"date":"2011-03-10T13:26:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T12:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=457"},"modified":"2011-03-10T13:26:48","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T12:26:48","slug":"the-trouble-with-dfid-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/03\/10\/the-trouble-with-dfid-is\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble with DfID is ..."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've lost count of the number of discussions and conversations I have these days where someone starts a sentence in this way \u2013 and it usually ends, one way or another, with a complaint that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dfid.gov.uk\/\">DfID<\/a> is [shock] promoting current government policy. \u00a0But DfID has always done this, and a major purpose of the development education that it has supported over recent years has been to win public approval for its policies \u2013 hence all those Brazilian Dance troups that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1212935\/250-000-Third-World-aid--Hackney-Taxpayers-funding-Brazilian-dance-troupe-London-borough.html\">Daily Mail<\/a> (and others) go on about. \u00a0 And when there has been low public support, historically, for the idea of overseas aid, there are points that need to be made and ideas to be got across. \u00a0So, the problem now is not that the department has changed; rather, it is that the policy has \u2013 which is what so many people are upset about. \u00a0 DfID is ok, it seems, provided it's 'OK'. \u00a0 As for me, well, I am always uneasy about government departments promoting themselves through the education system, as this is not what schools, colleges and universities are for in a liberal democracy. \u00a0Imagine the uproar if the MoD ... .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've lost count of the number of discussions and conversations I have these days where someone starts a sentence in this way \u2013 and it usually ends, one way or another, with a complaint that DfID is [shock] promoting current...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}