The United Kingdom’s international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has an “overarching ambition” of bolstering public support for development and has tasked the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, or FCDO, to increase favorability ratings of the aid budget from the current 50% to 70%.
To help achieve this, Mitchell is rebranding the government’s aid work, which will now be called UK International Development, or UKID, to “make British leadership more identifiable at home and abroad,” he told Devex in an interview in his private office on Wednesday. “This is making the merger a success,” he added, referring to the government’s 2020 decision to fold the Department for International Development into the Foreign Office — a move that was controversial, including with Mitchell at the time.
Both moves represent a culmination of six months of work for Mitchell, a former DFID secretary who’s been in his current post for half a year. Mitchell previously fought then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak over his decision to cut the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income in 2021.
About the author
William Worley@willrworley
Will Worley is the Climate Correspondent for Devex, covering the intersection of development and climate change. He previously worked as UK Correspondent, reporting on the FCDO and British aid policy during a time of seismic reforms. Will’s extensive reporting on the UK aid cuts saw him shortlisted for ‘Specialist Journalist of the Year’ in 2021 by the British Journalism Awards. He can be reached at william.worley@devex.com.
