Fraud

It's time to talk about fraud in aid agencies

That risk is high. Cultures of trust, challenging environments where staff are overstretched, and high-risk delivery models (such as humanitarian emergencies and remote programme management) all raise it. Our moral missions may encourage us to take poorly managed risks. Estimates of the scale of loss to fraud are between 2% and 5% of an organisation’s income – and many global development workers find that range readily believable. Of the £5.8bn identified as having been channelled through NGOs in humanitarian emergencies in 2013, for example, that range could mean that up to £276m may have been lost to fraud.