The United Kingdom has been consistently failing to achieve its core mission of reducing overseas poverty since 2020, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned on March 4 in its mid-term review of Britain’s Official Development Aid (ODA) program.
The OECD noted that Britain’s development aid goals have “shifted substantially” away from poverty reduction and more towards combating the Covid-19 pandemic abroad (from 2021-2022) followed by spending on in-donor refugee hosting (2022 to present). Of particular concern for the OECD was the fact that Britain spent 29% of its entire ODA budget on hosting refugees locally (i.e. in Britain) in 2022, which, alongside budget cuts, has negatively impacted many of the United Kingdom’s international partnerships as well as its stated aim to reduce poverty levels overseas.
Shifting priorities and reduced budgets
Over the past four years, the OECD has been strongly pressing Britain to honor its commitments to its international partners as well as to return to a more SDG-driven strategy.
The appeals were triggered by the British government’s decision to slash its ODA budget from a previous floor of 0.7% of GNI (Gross National Income) in 2020 to around 0.5% of GNI. In particular, the UK’s ODA fell from £15.1 billion in 2019 to £14.5 billion in 2020 and £11.4 billion in 2021.
These budget cuts resulted in severe harms in some cases, with some projects having their funding frozen with little to no advanced warning. In other cases, the British government pulled out of partnerships for multi-year projects, leading to some dramatic impacts, including abandoning millions of people suffering from hunger.
In 2022, the UK’s ODA went up to £12.8 billion. Yet, the increase was hardly felt overseas as the British government spent about 29$ of its ODA budget inside the country to cover the costs of hosting refugees. Thus, the shift of funding to in-donor refugee hosting as a priority combined with an overall reduction in ODA spend has put the British government’s stated mission to reduce global poverty into serious question.
Using bold text, the authors of the OECD mid-term report for Britain strongly urged the country to do more to protect the quality of its ODA by “not losing sight of poverty reduction as its driving principle” and that “further work is needed to fully seize the opportunities” of an integrated ministry (the FCDO).
Lastly, the OECD remonstrated the British government, reminding it that its own guiding legislation requires that all ODA must be “likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty.” Furthermore, the cabinet reshuffles and organizational changes have led to a measurable drop in the “coherence and completeness” of the United Kingdom’s statistical reporting to the OECD on its ODA efforts. The OECD also strongly urged Britain to implement a cap on how much ODA it will spend domestically (e.g. on hosting refugees) and to take concrete steps to prevent future sudden increases of in-donor costs.
A few rays of sunshine
Despite the largely negative summary of Britain’s ODA efforts since 2000, the OECD did note that the country has made good progress on two out of the 10 recommendations it made in 2020 and some progress on a further six recommendations. The OECD also commended Britain for reinstating a cabinet-level development minister in October 2022 and the creation of a Second Permanent Undersecretary position in June 2023 to oversee the government’s ODA program.
The OECD warmly supported the FCDO’s goal to focus more on multi-year planning and its stated aim of better-seizing opportunities presented by the closer integration of political and development efforts as a result of the merged ministry. The OECD voiced its support for Britain’s stated objective to achieve greater synergy between its diplomatic efforts and development cooperation with foreign governments and international partners.
The OECD also praised the FCDO’s recently implemented internal development capability review program as well as the ministry’s plans for recruiting externally, referring to these as “positive steps” towards addressing the government’s challenges and “building back the breadth and depth of expertise that the United Kingdom’s development work was known for”.
In conclusion, the OECD is confident that, with fewer ministries and departments now responsible for the country’s ODA policy, spending, and review, there is a positive outlook for Britain being able to strengthen whole-of-government coherence. If the United Kingdom can successfully separate its asylum and immigration policies from its guiding principle to reduce (overseas) poverty, then Britain will be well placed to return to a leadership role on the international stage and rebuild and reinforce its international partnerships.
As of this writing, the British government has not issued a public response to the OECD mid-term review.
