Development policies
Improving performance and effectiveness
Introduction
With the publication of this White Paper, DFID is rightly addressing many concerns held by Bond members and others. This includes particularly the need to strongly focus on conflict and security as a key issue in UK development policy. Building our Common Future also refocuses UK aid on providing support for agriculture and infrastructure.
UK leadership in aid commitments is reconfirmed with a strong commitment to 0.7 by 2013 and the call for specific donor progress reports on commitments to monitor achievements and failures.
Bond responses to specific development policy areas based on issues we highlighted in the Bond White Paper submission are set out below.
If you have any comments on the Bond analysis or want to share your organisation's analysis of the DFID White Paper, please get in touch with Bond Advocacy team by using the feedback form.
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Promoting Economic Growth
Economic growth was an intensively discussed issue during the consultation process. Bond members highlighted in their submissions as well as in the joint Bond submission, that particularly in light of the financial crisis and economic downturn, DFID needs to change its economic growth model towards more equitable and pro poor growth.
It is therefore to be welcomed that the White Paper explicitly acknowledges that the Washington Consensus has failed and that the IMF and World Bank need to move away from an one-size-fits-all approach to growth. DFID commits to support countries to "chart a higher and more resilient growth course". The International Growth Centre which has been recently established by DFID now needs to take this challenge and support governments to build a pro poor growth agenda based on a fair distribution of wealth.
The White Paper also recognises that economic growth needs to be not only fair and equitable but also sustainable stressing the environmental perspective of economic growth. In the preface, Douglas Alexander says: "We will work for sustained, fairer and greener growth... ... with a focus on environmental sustainability."
The stated refocus on support for infrastructure, agriculture and focus on food security is welcome but should not come at expense of other sectors (the recent G8 Summit in Italy also contributed to renewed international attention to the fight against hunger).
Health and education and other basic services need to remain equally important. Therefore, Bond members appreciate the commitment to "spend half of future UK direct support for developing countries on public services".
The White Paper also acknowledges the key role of trade in development, calling for "a quick conclusion to the Doha trade talks". Yet, the major concern by international civil society and developing countries of not pushing through any harmful trade deals is not addressed.
While Bond strongly welcomes the increased support for fair and ethical trade we would like to highlight that on trade negotiations the deal currently on the table is not a pro poor development deal. The UK must work towards negotiations for a new deal that puts the poorest first. A quick conclusion to Doha will not make the international trade system fairer.
Tackling climate change
Bond stressed in our White Paper submission "the urgency of the climate change crisis and the need for the UK Government to play a leading role at the EU and international level to ensure an effective deal at Copenhagen".
We therefore welcome that the White Paper does clearly acknowledge the threats associated with climate change and commits to an "ambitious, comprehensive and equitable deal on climate change". While promising to use up to 10% of UK ODA for climate change related development projects, the White Paper also commits the UK Government to provide new and additional resources for climate change.
Where this new money will be coming from and how it will be disbursed must now be closely monitored. The White Paper highlights new resources for the Environmental Transformation Fund which is mainly channelled through the World Bank which threatens to compete with building a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) financing architecture.
Conflict
This White Paper has a widely welcomed new focus on conflict and fragile states committing to increased spending of aid funding in fragile and conflict affected states.
Bond also welcomes the promise of better alignment and coherence across UK Government responses to conflict. Bond members have been concerned about the danger of diverting aid funds to serve military spending in conflict zones. Therefore, we support but will also closely monitor the planned UK cross government strategies for engagement in all fragile states where a large programme by June 2010 sets out to ensure policy coherence.
The White Paper also acknowledges that much closer cooperation with and support for international institutions such as the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) is needed in conflict responses.
Access to security and justice are highlighted as basic services equally important to access to education or water. This is to be welcomed as access to security and justice are basic rights as stressed in the Bond submission. Yet, support for security and justice systems on the ground need to be accompanied by regular dialogue with partner governments.
The White Paper does acknowledge the complexity of the challenges in conflict and fragile states, but success will need more than extra money. As the Bond submission pointed out, well-trained, committed staff in DFID who remain in post long enough to develop a thorough understanding of the issues and local context are vital for managing the challenges faced in fragile and conflict-affected environments.
International institutions
Bond welcomes DFID's commitment to strengthen its support for multilateralism. A new emphasis on promoting performance improvements of multilateral institutions such as UN agencies, the World Bank and the IMF could also be very significant, but needs to be developed further. In particular, scrutiny of the performance of the World Bank needs to be given greater attention, as the White Paper makes UN funding conditional on its performance but fails to do so for the World Bank.
The White Paper also highlights that international institutions need to be more accountable and responsive as we highlighted in the Bond submission. With an increasing role for the World Bank and particularly the IMF as agreed at the London G20 Summit, it is very important to move forward on governance and conditionality reforms of these institutions. It is therefore disappointing that the White Paper is not clearer about type of governance reforms it would like to see at the IMF and World Bank and the need for parity of voice and vote between developed and developing countries.
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Improving performance and effectiveness
The White Paper places a strong focus on aid effectiveness stressing that DFID takes its own effectiveness and the need to increase value for money seriously. Long overdue commitments to increase transparency and provide greater support for accountability work in-country to compliment the delivery of budget support were made. However, these commitments now need to be delivered on in the fullest possible sense.
Bond members were disappointed that a more concrete agenda for promoting improvements in the effectiveness of international institutions, especially the World Bank, was not presented; and that strengthening mechanisms for holding developed countries to their development commitments internationally received limited support.
With regard to aid effectiveness frameworks, the White Paper encouragingly confirmed international commitments made in the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action. However, with the Paris Declaration reaching its target year and expiring in 2010 and signatories way behind in delivering on their promises around ownership, harmonisation and other areas, it was hoped that the White Paper would focus more on how the Paris targets are to be achieved and the principles that should be at the heart of a post-2010 agenda.
