The BBC has reported that the World Bank, the globe's most prominent organization in fighting poverty, has complained that a recent cut to the UK foreign aid budget has "caused real pain". The Bank stressed the UK must get "back at higher levels" of funding.

Staggeringly, the UK government was until recently the biggest single contributor to the Bank's fund for the poorest countries in the world. To be clear; UK taxpayers were the biggest donors!

Since 2020 ministers have reduced foreign aid, until Britain's public finances are back in shape. Some may say that is going to be a long-term thing. As part of that reduction, funding to the World Bank's International Development Association fund has halved to £500m a year.

The World Bank apparently faces challenges as it is struggling to raise finances. The Libertarian Party would like to respectfully suggest a different way of going about this.

Instead of robbing from hard-pressed citizens through excessive taxation, the spending of which they have little control over, to make targeted appeals for voluntary donations from those who can afford it.

It should also campaign to stop foreign intervention in the wars that cause so much of the aforementioned poverty. Various African civil wars, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and now the escalation in Gaza have all been exacerbated by foreign tinkering with local politics and arms sales.

In demanding forced taxation from the citizens of the West, the World Bank is just another cog in the machinery that perpetuates the upwards movement of money from the poor to the very rich.