UK aid will need to do more, with less money — due to a shrinking economy with looming cuts in government budgets, the Department for International Development (DFID) merger with the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO), and the need to tackle the increasing global challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK has a world leading commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA) enshrined in law. This means that when the economy is doing better,...
On 16 June, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the unexpected merger of The Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) into a new Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). This merger could be disastrous for those struggling to survive poverty, climate change, and the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than building a “global Britain,” it could see aid being spent on the UK’s trade, defence, and commercial interests. This would be putting politics before...
This week, the UK government launched the “Integrated Review of foreign policy, defence, security and international development”. This review will set the tone for Britain’s role in the world for years to come, so it’s important that it genuinely looks to the future. However, the sad truth is that these reviews often simply end up preparing us for the last war or crisis. At best they might make us slightly better prepared for the next crisis — but they rarely,...
As the UK Department for International Development welcomes Anne-Marie Trevelyan as the sixth secretary of state in four years, ONE UK & Ireland Director Romilly Greenhill reflects on the legacy and future of UK aid. My first job was in the Ugandan Finance Ministry. This was the early 2000s, and Uganda was getting a lot of aid and debt relief, including from the UK. My job was to monitor the money and check that it was spent on things that...