I previously mentioned two indexes, the Department for International Development’s (DFID) needs-effectiveness index and the Fund for Peace’s Failed States Index. There are many other examples though and in recent years it has seemed to be a growth industry with everyone and anyone wanting to have a piece of the action. As the recent errors…
When the Coalition came into power it set the Department of International Development (DFID) a target of allocating 30% of the UK’s bilateral official development assistance (the term devised by the OECD and its member countries to determine whether funding or other support counts as aid or not) by 2014-15. In many ways this was…
Next month, South Sudan will celebrate its first birthday. While this should be cause for elation, we must pause to recognize that the world’s youngest nation may perhaps also be the most vulnerable. The peaceful secession of South Sudan last July was a remarkable outcome after decades of conflict and dispute. The agreement to…
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…
