Conference call: The DFID-FCO merger

On June 16, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a merger between the Department for International Development and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The two departments will form a new body from September, called the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Although a potential merger between the two departments had been widely anticipated, the timing came as a surprise to many, and leaves unanswered questions about what the new department will look like and what the implications are for U.K. aid. With any change in the machinery of government, “whether it’s effective or not depends on the vision behind it … The next two months are going to be critical in deciding where this all goes,” said Myles Wickstead, who has served as both a diplomat and a development official for the U.K. government. Devex U.K. Correspondent Will Worley spoke with Wickstead and the Overseas Development Institute’s Nilima Gulrajani to gain their insights. Highlights from this conference call include: • How similar mergers have played out elsewhere in the world. • Implications for where and how U.K. aid is spent. • Scenarios for how foreign policy and development policy could interact going forward. • The transparency and scrutiny of U.K. aid. • How U.K. aid partners should respond. Speakers: • Myles Wickstead, visiting professor at the Department of International Development at King's College London; former British ambassador to Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the African Union; and head of the British development division in Eastern Africa. • Nilima Gulrajani, ODI senior research fellow and author of a paper on merging development agencies. Moderator: Will Worley, U.K. correspondent, Devex Have follow-up questions? Send them to webinars@devex.com.