Conference call: How FCO spends aid

Last month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a merger between the Department for International Development and Foreign & Commonwealth Office to form a new department — the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office — by September. While we don’t know yet exactly what the new department will look like, we do know that DFID and FCO spend official development assistance very differently. At the moment, FCO spends just 4.5% of U.K. ODA, compared to DFID’s 73% share of the aid budget — but with the merger, FCO’s approach to ODA spending could become more dominant. In this digital event, Devex Data Journalist Lisa Cornish digs into the data to explore how FCO spends ODA. Highlights from this event include: • Key differences between DFID and FCO ODA spending. • FCO’s ODA priorities by country and sector, and its key partners. • What the data tells us about how FCO thinks about ODA spending. • Issues in transparency and the limits of FCO data. • Insights from the case of Australia — where AusAID was merged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2013 — and how foreign policy priorities are reflected in the data there Speaker: Lisa Cornish, data journalist, Devex Moderator: William Worley, U.K. correspondent, Devex Have follow-up questions? Send them to webinars@devex.com.