Exclusive: Over 200 ex-DFID staffers have left UK's FCDO since merger

The United Kingdom has lost more than 200 development professionals since last year’s merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Devex has learned. A Freedom of Information Act request sent by Devex to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office revealed that 213 former DFID employees have left the new department since it opened on Sept. 2, 2020. FCDO sees in its first birthday from an unsteady position, facing criticism for its performance amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan and specifically the conduct of embattled Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, against whom significant blame has been leveled for the crisis. Concerns are now shifting to Afghanistan’s humanitarian and development requirements, but it is unclear how FCDO’s capacity to respond may have been affected by the loss of former DFID staffers. “These staff members leaving couldn't come at a worse time, just as FCDO needs this experience to deal with the ongoing humanitarian crises in South Sudan and Afghanistan.” --— Paul Abernethy, government relations and public affairs manager, Bond FCDO provided no further information about the work and locations of the former staffers or about how many may have left due to retirement or layoffs. DFID employed 3,412 people overall in March 2020, with 773 of them appointed in-country, according to the department's annual report. FCDO as a whole has shrunk by 280 people since it opened, employing 7,600 in the third quarter of 2020 but just 7,320 in the first quarter of 2021, according to an analysis by Rhys Clyne, senior researcher at the Institute for Government. These former employees are unlikely to be the last to go, as what’s being called a “strategic workforce review” looms over the department, with fears it could disproportionately affect development staffers. FCDO told Devex that the number of former DFID staffers who departed after the merger was “in line with” the previous year’s turnover but declined to give exact figures. The merger, which preceded the enactment of cuts to the country’s aid budget, was a controversial move. Announcing it on June 16, 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that it would see the end of U.K. aid being “treated as some giant cashpoint in the sky.” But many in the development sector feared it could lead to a loss of development expertise from the government, among other consequences. For some, the staff exodus is evidence that those fears are becoming reality. “These staff members leaving couldn't come at a worse time, just as FCDO needs this experience to deal with the ongoing humanitarian crises in South Sudan and Afghanistan, as well as COVID-19 and the climate emergency,” said Paul Abernethy, government relations and public affairs manager at Bond, the network for NGOs in the U.K. He added that the number of development staffers leaving “further exacerbates our worries that development will take a back seat to other FCDO interests.” Among the global development community, DFID had a reputation as a highly professionalized department and was considered the best development agency in the world by some. It was organized into cadres, housing many world-class specialists in areas such as global public health, sexual and reproductive rights, and water, sanitation, and hygiene. “My committee warned early on that there would be a brain drain,” said Sarah Champion, the chair of the International Development Committee, which is composed of members of Parliament who monitor development policy. “These [DFID staffers] are [the] best development people in the world, and it’s deeply, deeply disappointing that our prediction is coming true.” She added that “the government said merging diplomacy and development was a sensible strategy, but what we have seen happen in Afghanistan makes me extremely concerned about that strategy going forwards.” Update, Jan. 10, 2022: The number of former DFID staff who left FCDO was updated from 212 to 213 following a clarification from FCDO.