The International Development Strategy

By Alice Denning

So, what is the new UK’s international development strategy, otherwise known as the IDS? The short answer is; very difficult to read. After scrolling rather despairingly through the 32-page document multiple times, I returned to the summary at the top to give me the gist, hoping for an accurate, focused description of the UK’s planned aid budget complete with bullet points and statistics. Bullet points I had a-plenty, statistics; not so much. This is a running theme throughout this document, with plenty of laudable promises to “unleash the potential of people to take control” (or take back control; always good to recycle the old slogans), and “provide life-saving humanitarian assistance”. Great! Complete with the promise to return 0.7% of Gross National Income to UK Aid as soon as possible, the future looks rosy! However, the pesky niggle of “how” looms large in the background. Once I had delved into the whole document, over 3 days, complete with many unneeded tea, coffee, juice, water, google and toilet breaks (it really was heavy going), the future began to take on quite a different hue. The International Development Strategy; UK:130, Poverty Reduction:1

At first glance, it seems brilliant that a document written to outline the UK’s future direction in foreign development recognises so intelligently the need for sustainable growth in middle to low-income countries, to prevent the spiral into debt and decline. It seems to make sense to establish strong trading relationships with these countries in order to support them in the longer term. However, I feel the problem lies in the fact that the UK also benefits from this approach, leaving it open to bias and corruption. The document itself states that “since leaving the European Union, we (the UK) have full control over our trade policy and will use it to support long-lasting development.”. This is a lovely sentiment, but our current position amongst trading nations is far from strong. If you were in a government beleaguered by the rising cost of living and beset on all sides by demands for money, would you be prioritising a trade deal in a country that desperately needs your help but one in which you won’t see return on investment for a decade, and undercuts UK farmers into the bargain? Or would you want to prioritise a country that could “deliver for people here in the UK”, “generate export opportunities in the UK” and “create jobs” across the UK?. Even an idealist would be tempted. And we are not ruled by idealists. Fair enough to want to put the UK first, but not when talking about how you are going to spend a specific portion of the budget set aside for aid. Moreover, it could be argued that this focus on spending money improving developing economies is in fact a false economy when it comes to poverty reduction at ground level, which is surely the definition of aid. It is in effect applying the policy of trickle-down economics to the world stage. Trickle-down economics is the idea that by cutting taxes on the wealthy, they then have more money to spend and thus it “trickles down” the economy in stages and ends up in the hands of the less well off. Dreamt up by (surprise, surprise) the wealthy, this has a hint of the feudal system about it. Just go and tell the peasants to stand in the field with their hands open, praying to the money gods that the pounds will roll down the feudal pyramid and fall from the sky. They’ll wait there long enough for this all to blow over.

A paper published by David Hope and Julian Limberg at the LSE in 2020 studying the effect on major tax cuts for the rich in 18 OECD countries over the last five decades, has proven that “reducing taxes on the rich lead(s) to higher income inequality” and does “not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment”. Highlight “growth”- synonymous with development. The policy of only investing aid in the economy, helping the rich become richer, to stimulate growth- the main focus of the IDS- has been proven, over five decades, to be useless! In contrast, the global fund, set up in 2002 to end global TB, malaria and AIDS, is a financing mechanism only; it does not implement its own policies, it provides the finance and allows countries to propose and lead the implementation. Can you imagine an IDS document that instead of referencing the UK 130 times, referenced the UK only once, at the start of a document dedicated to outlining country-led approaches to aid? And country-led aid works. The number of deaths caused by AIDS, TB and malaria each year have been reduced by 46% since 2002 in countries where the Global Fund invests^1.. Moreover, progress is assessed 18 months into the implementation of the Global Fund grant, and funding is only continued if progress can be proven. Also, unlike the IDS, the Global Fund does what it says on the tin. It provides a global solution to a global problem, by combining multilateral aid from more than 80 countries. The IDS is stepping back from this global approach, to have “more and closer bilateral partnerships” with developing countries, and in doing so “substantially rebalance its ODA (Official Development Assistance) investments from multilateral towards bilateral channels”. The FCDO is aiming, by 2025, to spend around three quarters of its funding on bilateral programs. This means that despite the current geopolitical situation, the UK is continuing in the wake of Brexit to isolate itself from its global partners and attempt to ‘go it alone’. This is not only potentially damaging for the UK; it also means that the ODA will be spent less effectively in the future as it will not be added to a larger fund to tackle a country-led initiative, but will be parcelled up to fund a smaller investment prioritised by the UK.

I could go into more detail, about how the “UK Centres of Expertise” set up to share UK skills and knowledge with our developing neighbours smack so much of colonialism I wonder how that was even considered acceptable branding, or about how the commitments to end conflicts do not for a second admit any UK responsibility for any conflicts, past or present. The grim reality is that the UK is set on a very different course of international aid than perhaps first appears. What is the International Development Strategy? Very difficult reading, and for all its many words, it can be summed up in two numbers. The UK, whom the document is written for but should not be about, is referenced 130 times. Poverty reduction; the very definition of international aid and the only thing the document should be about, is referenced only once.