The UK government has today published a White Paper on International Development – a formal government document setting out future policy proposals – to state its approach to international development until 2030.
In the foreword to the White Paper the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, said that the UK’s approach to development needs to adapt to new global realities. Its key themes include:
- Multiple, intersecting crises as the new context for development.
- Ending extreme poverty and tackling climate and environmental change through integrated approaches.
- Focusing on partnerships, with a ‘new approach’ to development founded on respectful partnerships rather than a charity model.
- Targeting the most marginalised, focusing UK ODA on the lowest income countries, and focusing efforts on women and girls, people living with disability and the LGBT community.
- Humanitarian action and long-term development. Integrating humanitarian action and long-term development, including via focusing development on crisis prevention and preparedness, and addressing underlying causes.
- Harnessing science and technology by drawing on the UK’s strengths in science and technology to support tackling the most urgent global challenges and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
- New approaches to development financing, complementing ODA with initiatives to mobilise the power of private finance, multi-lateral development banks, trade and debt restructuring.
In response to the White paper, Professor Melissa Leach, Director, Institute of Development Studies, says:
“We welcome the focus of today’s White Paper on forging new ways of tackling extreme poverty and climate change together, via a central focus on resilience, and ‘just transitions’. It is also good to see approaches based on patient listening and response to the priorities of marginalised people and countries, built on respectful partnerships rather than an outdated charity model.
“This change in approach is long overdue and one that we have been calling for, based on the evidence of what works for development in today’s context of multiple crises and intersecting inequities. Along with the emphasis on harnessing the diversity of science, technology and innovation and on new ways of mobilising development finance, there is the promise here of a positive agenda that can help restore progress towards the SDGs.
“However, the policies set out in the White Paper won’t work unless the UK is able to ‘walk its talk’, restoring its reputation as a trusted and reliable international partner – sticking to its long-term commitments, and building equitable partnerships, based on an acknowledgement of current and historical power imbalances. A key part of this must also be for the FCDO to commit to a timeline and criteria for return to meeting the 0.7% ODA contribution,
“In our era of polycrisis, to make the biggest impact for low-income countries, UK development should focus on integrating approaches to humanitarian action, conflict and development, and the response and chronic recovery mode from protracted crises. In this respect, we are also pleased to see that the FCDO has listened to the argument that humanitarian action and longer-term development should not be treated separately.
“To work towards prevention and resilience in the midst of increasing climate change impacts, conflict, and the legacy of Covid-19, we want to see the FCDO supporting locally-led solutions for addressing multidimensional poverty and vulnerability. It’s not just about income. It is also about equity and fairness, relating to gender, ethnicity, geography, faith and disability. Understanding this, and the power of grassroots transformations based on the lived-experiences, voices and knowledge of the poorest and marginalised, is essential to tackle complex, interconnected challenges and to getting the Sustainable Development Goals back on track.”