For 45 years, the UK has debated achieving the ODA target of 0.7% of GDP/GNI set out in UN General Assembly Resolution 2626 in 1970. In 2013, with cross-party agreement at last, the UK became the first of the G8 states to achieve that 0.7% target. And on Friday 12 September 2014 164 MP’s across…
This week, as the world watched with baited breath the violent clashes in Gaza, Goma and Syria, the harrowing images and stories broadcast on our television screens offer a cold reminder of the human cost of conflict. There is little dispute that conflict, development and peacebuilding are intrinsically linked. Yet the current development framework in…
As the nature of conflict has changed in the post-Cold War era, so too has the UK government’s policy discourse on development aid. Since DfID’s first White Paper in 1997, Eliminating World Poverty: a challenge for the 21st Century, we have witnessed a growing recognition that development and security are intrinsically linked. Over the…
My colleagues on the Economic Affairs Committee in the House of Lords could hardly have chosen a worse time for their report, published on 29 March 2012, opposing the all party commitment to 0.7% of UK GDP as the target for our nation’s international development aid. While politicians and pundits in Britain might be…
