A strange complaint about the international aid business:

Boards and senior leadership positions in NGOs are dominated by white people and based in high-income countries such as the UK, underpinned by false assumptions that best practice originates in wealthy states, the report said.

The basic moral and logical contention here is that some places are rich, some are poor. This means that there is that moral duty for the richer to aid the poorer and thus the transfer of economic wealth from one to t’other. That is the logic being used.

Best practice is whatever it is that makes one place rich, another not so much. That’s the subject under discussion after all. So, logically again, best practice does indeed originate in the wealthy states. Because that’s the proof of the pudding, these are the things which make a place richer.

We’re trying to aid poor places in becoming richer. This does indeed mean following the policies that made rich places rich. How can anyone complain about that?