Global Britain Gets the Aid it Needs

What the UK’s new international development strategy means for foreign policy

After Boris Johnson returned to office in December 2019, an apocryphal story did the rounds in Whitehall. The Prime Minister had been on a visit to Africa as Foreign Secretary two years earlier. Relaxing at the residence of a British High Commissioner, he inquired about a vital aspect of British foreign policy in the country. “Oh, that’s not really up to us,” Britain’s top diplomat in the country replied, “that’s a decision for DfID – they have all the money.” Rumours whipped round that the Prime Minister, now armed with a mandate to get stuff done, would soon turn his attention to the issue.

The long-awaited International Development Strategy shows how far the government has come. The strategy – the first big policy publication since Liz Truss became Foreign Secretary – follows the Integrated Review last March which set out the UK’s post-Brexit security and international objectives.

Following big cuts to the UK’s development spending, the strategy prioritises women and girls, humanitarian crisis response and UK leadership on climate change, nature and global health. The most eye-catching part of the development strategy is the dramatic scaling back of spending through international organisations, such as the UN and World Bank, in favour of projects and countries that the UK prioritises. The aim is to give the British Government greater focus and control, while also addressing a long-standing concern amongst Ministers that, when it comes to the UK, multilateral institutions are very good at the taxation bit and rather less good at the representation part.

Ultimately, the development strategy reflects four drivers, which collectively draw the contours around this policy overhaul.

The first is to make the most of Britain’s new powers outside the EU – most notably in trade policy. This finds expression in a new Developing Countries Trading Scheme, improving access to the UK for goods from over 60 countries through a set of simpler, more generous trading arrangements.

The second is to ensure that the UK’s foreign policy resources are properly aligned. With the amalgamation of the Foreign Office and DfID, and in concert with the trade department, Ministers want to give proper heft to “economic diplomacy”. As Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in her Mansion House speech last month “we are now using all of our economic levers – trade, sanctions, investment and development policy – in a much more assertive way”.

The third is to play to the UK’s strategic strengths, in a supply-side shift that draws on British expertise, such as in financial services and renewable energies, to stimulate UK economic activity while serving development goals. “British Investment Partnerships”, the strategy states, “will deliver for people here in the UK – investments abroad will generate export opportunities in the UK, creating jobs right across the country.”

Finally, the strategy seeks to address hard geopolitical realities. China now spends over twice as much on development finance as the US. 44 low and middle income countries have debts to Beijing in excess of 10% of their GDP. The strategy, Liz Truss says, will “challenge dependency on malign actors, offering choice and bringing more countries into the orbit of free-market economies.”

As expected, the strategy has received a mixed response from the UK’s development sector. Cafod has accused the government of “raiding” the foreign budget to boost British trade, while others have criticised it for failing to immediately reinstate the 0.7% spending commitment – perhaps ignoring how the Government might persuade taxpayers in a cost-of-living crisis to dig behind the sofa cushions for an extra £3 billion for overseas aid.

As with all government strategies, it will require detailed operational plans and budgets, the efficient re-allocation of resources and continued political will to make it happen. That’s not easy when the newly-minted FCDO is trying to resolve stubborn Brexit issues and practise careful diplomacy during war in Europe – all while managing the complexities of a big merger.

However, the strategy provides direction. It sets out the geopolitical context, narrows down the UK’s choices and flexes the country’s newly independent trade policy – to the benefit of the UK and its trade partners. Above all, it ensures that development assistance is a tool of British foreign policy, rather than a source of rivalry to it.