Yegna, Ethiopia's 'Spice Girls', lose UK funding

[Deleted]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38538631

The government has axed plans to fund a five-member Ethiopian girl band, saying there are "more effective ways" to invest UK aid.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel reviewed the funding after reports that pop group Yegna had received millions from UK taxpayers.

The government planned to give Girl Effect, the organisation which created Yegna, £11.8m between 2015 and 2018.

Girl Effect said its aims had been "wilfully misrepresented" in the media.

The project was created by the UK's Department for International Development and Nike Foundation in 2011 to promote women's rights in Ethiopia.

Girl Effect spent £100,000 promoting Yegna since 2015, which has been the subject of a long-running campaign by the Daily Mail. It dubbed the band "Ethiopia's Spice Girls" saying that grants to the group were a waste of money.

Girl Effect founded the five-strong girl band in 2013 to tackle issues including domestic violence and forced marriage through songs and online videos.

The UK's Department for International Development said its partnership with Girl Effect has ended following the review, but insisted that "empowering women and girls around the world remains a priority".

It said the decision had not been influenced by press coverage of Yegna.

"We judge there are more effective ways to invest UK aid," a spokeswoman said, adding that the government will "deliver even better results for the world's poorest and value for taxpayers' money".

They perform a weekly drama and talk show on Ethiopian radio, as well as running a YouTube channel. They released their first song, Abet, meaning "We are here" in Ethiopia's official language Amharic, four years ago.

Girl Effect said Yegna aims to "change the culture of Ethiopia in a good way, to explain the problems in the society".

WTF? I can understand the whole '"empowering women and girls around the world"" but £11.8m o.O

[ro9ue]

How about using that money to buy the country food.

[Deleted]

How about using that money to buy the country food.

That's what Harvest Festival is for

[Deleted]

How about using that money to buy the country food.

Or rather, teaching them how to grow their own food.

[Fencers]

WTF? I can understand the whole '"empowering women and girls around the world"" but £11.8m o.O

Marketing is not cheap. 11.8 million is pretty budget all in all.

[Techno-Druid]

Or rather, teaching them how to grow their own food.

They do know how to grow their own food...

[Sykol]

If you wanna be my arranged marriage husband,
You gotta get me some trash,
Starving's fucking awful,
And eating flies gives me a rash

[Spectral]

This is a good example of the sort of thing that makes me inclined to think government-based foreign aid should be cut to the bone. It's really hard to figure out how the general interests of the British people are served by funding Ethiopian pop music. If someone thinks funding Ethiopian pop music is a good thing to do, I have no qualms with them and think they should start an NGO and get after it, but there really isn't much of a basis for extracting funds from British taxpayers to do so.

[Ripster42]

Lets be clear, they didn't actually spend 11.8 million. Doesn't really say how much they'd spent before it got axed, but it wasn't 11.8 million. Nearest information is that an NGO spent 100k on advertising, but we don't know if that's all that was spent on yegna or if all that money was from the british govt.

Seems like media and government auditing working as intended. Curbs wasteful spending.

[Mistame]

Good move. The Spice Girls were horrible.

[Netherspark]

This is a good example of the sort of thing that makes me inclined to think government-based foreign aid should be cut to the bone. It's really hard to figure out how the general interests of the British people are served by funding Ethiopian pop music. If someone thinks funding Ethiopian pop music is a good thing to do, I have no qualms with them and think they should start an NGO and get after it, but there really isn't much of a basis for extracting funds from British taxpayers to do so.

Well the point of it was to promote social values, through popular music. It's not just funding a random pop group for the sake of it.

[Spectral]

Well the point of it was to promote social values, through popular music. It's not just funding a random pop group for the sake of it.

This does not impact my position in any meaningful way.

[Deleted]

[Kronik85]

Apparently 70%+ of the girls who said they had been influenced by this intended to stay in school, so what they are doing is working. Yes it seems frivolous but all foreign aid beyond doing the basics is going to look frivolous. Outraged Daily Fail readers at their best here, the money isn't going to be reinvested back into the UK, the foreign aid budget won't be changing, but a programme which was actually having success advancing our aims and helping the young women of Ethopia get an education will now have less money to work with.

I fucking hated the Spice Girls growing up, but they undeniably had an effect on the girls of my generation. Hopefully the International Development can genuinely put the money to better use, what people rarely seem to understand is it's programmes such as this that give a nation the right to call itself great. The NHS, free schooling for every child in the country and a little bit of altruism are things to be proud of.