After tightening its criteria for awarding grants, the U.K. Department for International Development last year released a code of conduct for implementing partners, which, among other things, underscores the donor country’s emphasis on achieving value for money.
The United Kingdom has pledged to bring foreign aid spending to 0.7 percent of gross national income by 2015, a promise U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne renewed recently in his 2014 budget statement to the Parliament. This means the donor country is likely to spend as much as 12 million pounds ($19.8 million) in official development assistance this year.
The more stringent procurement policies were implemented partly to assuage public outcry over foreign aid spending — and DfID’s ring-fenced budget — amid a weak domestic economy but also to respond to internal and independent reviews over DfID’s use of technical experts.