UK Elections And The International Development Agenda
To help the world’s poorest at a time of financial restraint the next government needs to find new ways of putting global poverty reduction at the heart of policy across government, says a new report by the leading independent think tank ippr.
The report, commissioned by leading development charity World Vision, makes the following key points:
- It strongly supports the commitment by all the main parties to meet the UN’s target for aid spending, and argues that the Government needs to be stricter and more transparent about what can count as aid, particularly outside the Department for International Development (DFID).
- But it highlights the fact that development is not simply a matter of spending money, and that policies across government (e.g. on climate change, or corruption) have important development impacts.
- It argues strongly that DFID should remain a fully independent department, on an equal footing with the Foreign Office, focused on global poverty reduction.
- But it also suggests that DFID and other departments need to change the way they work together to deliver the UK’s international development objectives across government (e.g. through more joint strategies for key countries).
Sarah Mulley, Senior Research Fellow at ippr and the author of the report said:
“Helping to lift the world’s poorest people out of poverty is not simply a matter of increasing aid spending, important as that is. The UK’s commitment to international poverty reduction needs to be judged across a range of policies which extend far beyond what is usually thought of as ‘development policy’, and which are outside the direct control and remit of DFID. As we approach the general election, all political parties need to recognise that development is not just a matter for DFID, or simply a question of aid budgets.”
The ippr report looks at the UK’s record on conflict, trade, migration, climate change and corruption, and argues that a new cross-governmental international development strategy is needed, including areas of policy which have not so far included a strong development voice.
Justin Byworth, Chief Executive of World Vision UK, said:
“World Vision strongly believes that DFID should remain a strong and independent department within government, but in our inter-connected world development must also be a priority for other UK departments including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. As we approach a crucial election, and the world convenes to review the Millennium Development Goals, now is the right time to ensure that the full range of UK policies help to support poverty reduction around the world.”
The report examines a criticism that is sometimes levelled at DFID – that it does not work effectively with other parts of government. ippr argues that DFID has had good reasons to hold itself slightly apart from the rest of government – the benefits of its independence are clear in the poverty focus of UK aid spending. But the report argues that the gains DFID has made in the last decade now need to be secured by making international development integral to the wider policy agenda.
Future of the UK’s International Development Agenda:
Much debate has focused on how DFID operates in countries where the UK is at war, and Afghanistan in particular. ippr argues that DFID does need new ways of working in these situations, but that it would be a mistake to reconfigure the department’s entire approach on the basis of the demands of these particular cases.
Over the last 12 years, the United Kingdom has built an international reputation as a leading aid donor, and as an innovator in development policy. The Department for InternationalDevelopment (DFID) is a strong, independent actor both in London and in the countries in which it works. Furthermore, a consensus has now been established across much (if not all) of the political spectrum for the department’s existence, for the commitment to meet the 0.7 per cent of GDP aid target, and for the legitimacy of the development agenda. These achievements should be celebrated and built on.
But beyond aid, a serious attempt by the UK or any other developed country to engage with the underlying causes of poverty also requires policy changes beyond the traditional territory of development policy – in foreign affairs and defence, in migration and trade, in finance and environment. This agenda is usually referred to as ‘policy coherence for development’, and is the focus of this report. Although aid from the UK can have an important impact on the lives of some poor people in the developing world, the impacts of a range of other factors on poverty and rights are both more profound and far wider. These include: insecurity and violent conflict; the opportunities for and returns from trade and international migration; corruption, and climate change. The UK’s commitment to, and delivery of, international poverty reduction objectives thus needs to be judged across a range of policies far beyond what is usually thought of as ‘development policy’, and which are outside the direct control and remit of DFID.
This debate is often expressed through a more specific discussion of DFID’s place within government. DFID officials argue that the department has become a development ministry, not an aid agency, focusing as much on influencing policies in Whitehall (and internationally) as on delivering high-quality development assistance. Critics (inside and outside government) argue that DFID still operates primarily as an aid agency, separate from the rest of government; that wider UK public policy in defence and security, environment, migration and trade is rarely approached through a poverty reduction lens (particularly where there are genuine conflicts between UK interests and those of poor countries); and that the result is a lack of clear focus or coherence in the UK’s support for, and engagement with, the poorest countries. Of course, in the real world of politics there are genuine trade-offs – between tightly-focused development policies and wider influence, between short-term poverty reduction objectives and longer-term change processes, and, in some cases, between the interests of rich and poor countries. This report does not claim to have easy answers. Rather, we aim to set out the nature of the trade-offs that exist, explore the (explicit or implicit) decisions that have been made by the UK government in the face of these trade-offs and draw some conclusions about areas in which the evidence suggests that different choices should be made in the future.
The UK record on policy coherence
The ambition to achieve policy coherence has, in principle, been present ever since the establishment of DFID. A series of government White Papers have all given prominence to policy coherence, although the focus has shifted over time. The Government has also tried to use its central policy and target-setting machinery to promote coherence. A plethora of cross-Whitehall mechanisms have also evolved over time, reflecting attempts to achieve a more joined-up government effort on development. These bodies often oversee spending from an aid budget that has increasingly spread out across departmental boundaries.
Read the full report here: http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=732
Topics: 2010, aid spending, anti corruption, Britain, charities, charity, children, climate change, conflict, corruption, Department for Business, Department for International Development, development, DFID, financial aid, Foreign Office, general election, global poverty, Governance, government, Great Britain, Innovation and Skills, International, international development, migration, Millennium Development Goals, moniter, monitor, news, open government, policy, poverty, society, trade, transparent, U.K., UK, UN, United Kingdom, United Nations, world, World Vision UK
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