Parliament’s International Development Committee on Monday will hear testimony from stakeholders in the aid community and media on the role of for-profit contractors receiving and implementing U.K. taxpayer-funded overseas development assistance.
The hearing is the culmination of an ongoing inquiry by the IDC into for-profit development, a topic that has featured prominently and frequently in U.K. headlines over the last five years.
Criticism of for-profit aid firms intensified in the last year, after the government enshrined the aid budget at 0.7 percent of gross national income, prompting indignation from the austerity-squeezed U.K. public and the Daily Mail newspaper, which initiated a petition to repeal the measure. The petition quickly reached the 100,000 signatures required to compel Parliament to hold a debate, which is now scheduled on June 14.
About the author
Molly Andersmollyanders_dev
Molly Anders is a former U.K. correspondent for Devex. Based in London, she reports on development finance trends with a focus on British and European institutions. She is especially interested in evidence-based development and women’s economic empowerment, as well as innovative financing for the protection of migrants and refugees. Molly is a former Fulbright Scholar and studied Arabic in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.
