International development policy may not be attracting the same kind of attention as the economy or ‘broken Britain’ as political parties warm up for a General Election in 2010, but much is at stake.
That the efforts of poverty campaigners in recent years, including through Make Poverty History, have born fruit is evident in the cross-party commitment to meeting the UN target that all rich countries should give 0.7% of GDP as aid. Indeed, it sometimes feels as if all three main parties are competing to show which one of them is most committed to reaching the target.
The Government are committed to reaching this landmark target by 2013, and are (more or less) on track to do so, according to the OECD.
The Conservatives were quick to recognise that a public commitment to international development and aid was a ‘quick win’ in their efforts to shed their image as the ‘nasty party’, and have pledged to match the Government’s commitment. Interestingly, this commitment is being made in spite of considerable scepticism among the party’s own base. A survey of 144 Conservative prospective Parliamentary candidates by the website ConservativeHome showed only 4 per cent agreeing that international development should be immune from spending cuts, as compared with 39 per cent in favour of protecting defence and 34 per cent for protecting health spending (ConservativeHome.com 2009).
So, if there is such strong cross-party consensus, what’s really at stake in the election?
Two key issues are worth highlighting. One is the question of what spending counts towards meeting the 0.7% target. The other, related, issue is about DFID’s position and role in government, particularly vis a vis the FCO.
The question of what counts as aid is a crucial one. In the past, much aid from the UK and other countries was not primarily targeted at poverty reduction – it was often no more than poorly disguised trade promotion, or spending to promote strategic or defence interests. The official monitoring of the target takes place via the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, which defines what spending can and can’t count as aid, but it’s fair to say that this definition leaves considerable flexibility for governments to count spending that the public might not easily recognise as ‘aid’.
The UK Government set itself a higher standard for its spending through DFID in the 2002 International Development Act, which limits DFID’s spending to activities which reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. Meanwhile, recent Conservative statements about increasing aid spending in countries like Afghanistan, where the UK has significant military or strategic interests, have raised concerns from some quarters that the commitment to meet the 0.7% target will be watered down by a broadening of the definition of aid.
However, this is not a simple debate between ‘good guys’ who want to protect the aid budget for poverty reduction and ‘bad guys’ who would return us to the bad old days of aid tied to the UK’s commercial or strategic interests. In fact, the current division between DFID/aid spending and non-DFID/non-aid spending does cause problems in situations like Afghanistan where development challenges are complex, and where the UK government has a wide ranging set of objectives.
This relates to the second issue, of DFID’s place in government. The UK’s commitment to, and delivery of, international poverty reduction objectives 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 (e.g. trade, climate change, security). This is clearly an area where joined-up government is of primary importance.
But DFID has had good reasons in the past to hold itself slightly apart from the rest of government as it worked to establish an international development policy distinct from the UK’s commercial and strategic interests.
However, there are different views on the question of ‘where next?’ for DFID. Some argue that, faced with increasing fiscal and political pressures in the coming years, DFID should defend its ‘separateness’ and independence even more; others that the changing nature of poverty requires a more joined-up approach across government. Some even argue that DFID should be merged back into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The stated position of the Conservative Party is that a Conservative government would keep DFID as a separate department, but this view is not universally shared within the party, and the front bench team have sent strong signals that they would like DFID’s role to be more clearly supportive of the FCO.
Much of the debate has focused on how DFID operates in countries where the UK is at war, and Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. These situations, while very important politically, represent only a small part of what DFID does - it would be a mistake to reconfigure DFID’s entire approach on the basis of the demands of these particular cases.
A new report from ippr, to be published next week, argues that government spending in such circumstances should not be about a struggle between those who want to ‘raid’ the aid budget and those who want to defend the aid budget at all costs. The important distinction should not be between what spending can count as aid and which cannot, but between effective and ineffective spending.
Such an approach would require more flexibility in the use and allocation of aid budgets. Just as other departments are now allocated some aid spending, DFID should have more non-aid money in its budget to spend more flexibly. This would allow DFID’s expertise to be used more widely, particularly in post-conflict and conflict situations. The Government should at the same time broaden the scope of the 2002 Act to ensure that all spending in other departments that is counted as aid meets the same standards of poverty reduction.
Similarly, the debate about DFID’s position should not be reduced to an argument about defending DFID’s current ways of working or merging it with the FCO. Our research suggests that in the end, concerns about protecting aid spending for poverty reduction and ‘mainstreaming’ development objectives across a range of UK policy areas are best addressed through having a strong DFID making the developmental case at the heart of government. We argue that the benefits of a strong DFID, independent of the FCO, clearly outweigh the costs.
However, this does not mean that DFID should stand apart from the rest of government. It is important both for UK development policy and for DFID as a department that the coherence of government policy and practice deepens and becomes more systematic – this is the real challenge facing UK development policy in the coming years.
So, there is much at stake in the election. But it is important that those who support the cause of international development do not get trapped in a polarised debate which loses sight of the complexity and difficulty of the project.
Ippr’s report Policy coherence and the future of the UK’s international development agenda is published on March 5. See www.ippr.org or contact s.mulley@ippr.org
