The past three years have been challenging for UK humanitarian activists. The UK’s status as a global leader has virtually been destroyed after three years of severe budget cuts.
The scope of the damage was recently described in an Equality damage Assessment conducted by representatives of the Foreign, the Commonwealth and Development Office (FDCO). The UK’s capacity to fulfill its obligations to other countries was put in jeopardy, and the reductions had a particularly negative effect on marginalized populations and crisis-ridden nations. Additionally, in recent years FCDO stopped disclosing allocations for the future and submitting information to the Global Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), eroding its formerly strong reputation for transparency, making it more challenging to understand the impact.
Recently, there have been indications that the FCDO may be about to make a turn for the better. The most recent annual report for 2022–2023, which was just released, offered a lot more detail on prospective allocations than prior reports did and seems to show more care for the most underdeveloped nations. This blog examines some of the most important findings from the study and makes the case that, ultimately, the media’s coverage is not all terrible, even though there is still much room for improvement.
Re-establishing a reputation for openness
FCDO appears committed to reclaiming its status as among the aid agencies with the highest level of openness. It has historically been one of the few organizations to provide the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) with data that can be used.
However, in 2022, the FCDO ceased uploading data as it was in the process of combining the ex-FCO and ex-DFID systems for reporting, and as a result, the standard of its reporting significantly decreased. The 2022 fiscal year report had little information about future allocations, in contrast with previous years.
On both categories, there were advancements in 2023. A comprehensive assessment of allocations by nation and objectives for the following few years were included in the 2023 annual report, which provided an indication of how FCDO’s priorities will alter soon. Additionally, IATI data uploads have resumed after a brief pause. Despite the fact that the information that FCDO published in 2022 still has gaps, they have committed to go back to monthly uploads.
Improved emphasis on poverty
In addition to the recent sharp reduction in the budget for official development assistance (ODA), observers have also expressed worry over the rising use of ODA for diplomacy and political purposes. Despite always being a part of aid policy, these issues gained increased attention in publications like the 2022 Vision for Global Development, which also happened to be published at the same time as a reduction in the UK’s emphasis on fighting poverty. According to the OECD, from 2010/2011 and 2021, the proportion of UK aid given to least industrialized nations (LDCs) decreased from 37% to 26% (including the proportion of multilateral aid that LDCs receive that is attributed to the UK).
According to the FCDO’s budgetary projections for the following several years, this trend appears to be about to turn around. The aforementioned allocations do not represent the total ODA that the UK will provide (in part because ODA from other government agencies is not included in the report and in part as nations will receive extra funding in accordance with programmatic priorities like gender and climate), but they do provide insight into FCDO’s shifting priorities. From 53% in 2022–2023 to 57% in 2024–2025, nations with low incomes (LICs) will get a larger portion of aid. There is a strong correlation between allocation increases between these times and how poor a country is, and several reasonably prosperous nations have seen their allocations decline to zero.