UK taxpayers have picked up a new £5.2million bill to fund a talk show for Ethiopia's own Spice Girls.
Yegna, a five-strong pop group, has been awarded a contract to develop its 'branded media platform', which also includes a radio drama and music.
The foreign aid cash - which will keep the band going until at least 2018 - comes despite officials warning it may be a waste of money.
An Ethiopian girl band called Yegna, pictured, have received £5.2 million to fund a talk show
Yegna's aim is to empower young women in the African country through music.
In 2013 a Mail investigation from Ethiopia, which is one of the biggest recipients of British aid, revealed a UK-funded project named Girl Hub had provided £4million to help fund the group.
Ethiopian critics at the time said it was enough money to run the Yegna initiative for 154 years.
Then last year the Independent Commission on Aid Impact watchdog warned ministers to halt the project unless managers could show it was working.
It called for a review on whether 'funding is merited' amid 'significant concerns' as officials considered plans to pour another £16million into the project as a whole.
But following the report, the Department for International Development (Dfid), gave the go-ahead and injected a further £5.2million in the Yegna brand alone, it can be revealed.
The remaining of the £16million planned for the wider project of Girl Hub - then re-branded as Girl Effect - was also signed off.
The £5.2million Yegna contract for its brand and media platform was published on the Government website under its Dfid contracts.
Plans to pour new money into the project has never been publicly announced by the government.
MEET THE ETHIOPIAN SPICE GIRLS
The Ethiopian, from left, Lemlem Hailemichael, Zebiba Girma, Rahel Getu, Eyerusalem Kelemework and Teref Hassahun, have been funded by the UK taxpayer
Like the original Spice Girls, the Yegna members each have a nickname.
Lemlem Hailemicheal, 29, plays a tomboy, Zebiba Girma, 25, a mysterious character, Rahel Getu, 25, a dependable one, Eyerusalem Kelemework, 30, is a genius, and Teref Kassahun, 29, plays a spoiled brat.
They have performed concerts in Ethiopia, taken part in film screenings, and had several number one hits.
Their song This House says: 'Women are sisters, women are mothers, women are wives. Let's respect them. Tell that guy to respect girls and we will respect him.'
They are now looking to develop their media brand.
In 2013, Miss Hailemicheal said: 'It is definitely worth the cost – it is an amazing issue. It means a lot to Ethiopia and we are using the money effectively … We are like the Spice Girls except our music is not just for entertaining – it is educational.'
Yegna manager Selome Tadesse has said the band aims to bring about behavioural and material change for girls, by girls.
Documents show a contract was awarded to an agency to manage the Yegna brand and media products up until August 2018.
The three year phase has the long-term goal of 'changing how girls are valued and perceived in Ethiopian society'.
It said the latest plan was designed to 'grow, expand and improve the brand and implementing the media activities'.
According to the Dfid contract, entitled 'Girl Hub Ethiopia - Yegna brand and media platform, the new phase would include working on the brand strategy, marketing, communications, production of media products and broadcasting.
This would 'ensure that Yegna continues to be as unique and impactful as possible'.
Tory MP Peter Bone, pictured, asked whether the money could be diverted to pay for elderly people living in the UK
The £5.2million contract said : 'Girl Hub Ethiopia (GHE) wishes to contract an agency to manage the first work stream of its programme - Yegna branded media platform - which encompasses a radio drama and talk show, and music that champions girls and creates a national conversation about their challenges and their potential to overcome the problems.'
It comes after ministers unveiled controversial plans to allow town halls to hike council tax by up to 6 per cent to help pay for vital social care services.
The plans fuelled calls for Theresa May to put elderly people first by diverting the £12.2billion foreign aid budget to help tackle the elderly care crisis at home.
Tory MP Peter Bone said: 'How can we be spending millions on a girl band when the money could be much better spent at home on helping the elderly?
'This is the sort of up the wall project which shows why we must not have an aid pledge linked to GDP.
'This is not helping starving people, this is not helping refuges. We have to get to grips with this.'
Tory MP David Nuttall said: 'Spending more money on projects like Girl Hub will be seen by most people as an example of wasteful spending.
'No country should receive non-emergency aid like this unless they can clearly demonstrate they improving their own finances through trade and economic growth.'
He said there was a danger some countries would become 'reliant on international handouts for ever'.
Ethiopia has become one of the biggest recipients of Britain's ballooning foreign aid budget, despite being an autocratic one-party state.
The Yegna 'entertainment brand' was established in April 2013 as part of the Girl Hub project that also operates in Nigeria and Rwanda.
Girl Hub is run jointly with the Nike Foundation and had already received £27.1million from taxpayers up until last year.
In June 2015, the ICAI report raised concerns about 'governance' of the project, and questions whether Nike had met its commitments in full.
The report on the Girl Hub project as a whole, from June 2015 said: 'Icai fully recognises the importance of working to protect and assist adolescent girls but questions whether GH (Girl Hub) provides sufficient impact or value for money and whether it is, as currently structured, an appropriate vehicle through which to achieve change on such a complex, holistic and important issue.'
Tory MP David Nuttall, pictured, claimed taxpayers would question the choice of project
It said there were 'ongoing issues as the governance' of the project, transparency and effectiveness. The hard-hitting report added: 'We recommend that DFID should consider in depth whether ongoing funding is merited and either reach a decision to cease funding or consider extending the project for a year to enable the evaluation to be completed.'
Six months later, in December, the project was given foreign aid cash as part of a three year plan to implement a new phase of the project.
The Girl Effect project as a whole aims to drive behaviour change among girls and the wider community through media.
According to Dfid it also aims to 'influence partners working in Ethiopia to drive greater resources to girl-centred interventions to improve outcomes for girls'.
It aims to use 'branded social communication programmes to influence social norm change in the developing world'.
John O'Connell, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance: 'It's crucial that all foreign aid is used properly and that means focusing it towards the world's poorest.
'But every penny leaving these shores must be accounted for and should actually be helping vulnerable people.
'We need to drastically rethink our aid policy and ditch the arbitrary spending target, which delivers poor value for taxpayers' money, and start judging successes by outcomes and not by how much money the government can spend.'
Like the original Spice Girls, the band members each have a nickname.
Teref Kassahun plays the spoiled brat, Lemlem Hailemicheal, a tomboy known as the defender, Zebiba Girma, the mysterious character, Eyerusalem Kelemework, is the genius and Rahel Getu, the dependable one.
Lyrics to one of their songs, This House, has included: 'Women are sisters, women are mothers, women are wives. Let's respect them. Tell that guy to respect girls and we will respect him.'
The biggest regional beneficiary of Britain's £12.2billion aid budget is Africa, which received a total of £2.54billion last year.
Ethiopia was given the single largest amount on the continent of £334million.
Projects in war-torn states, such as Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Syria, were in each case worth in excess of £200million.
Last night Dfid defended the project.
A Dfid spokesman said: 'This innovative partnership is tackling forced child marriage, violence, teen pregnancy, migration and school drop-out, which are holding a generation of young Ethiopian women back.
'In the Amhara region the UK's work on girls and women, including Girl Effect, has averted or delayed marriage for nearly 40,000 girls.'
It comes after the aid watchdog last week warned that Dfid projects aimed at girls were in fact benefitting more boys.
The £5.2million Yegna contract for its brand and media platform was published on the Government website under its Dfid contracts.
Plans to pour new money into the project has never been publicly announced by the government. Read more here
No comments:
Post a Comment