The decision by the United Kingdom to reduce the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, less than three months after the merger of the Department for International Development into the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, caused a £4.6 billion hole in the budget, rocked the country’s development sector, and caused bafflement around the world.
Stefan Dercon, former policy adviser to previous Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, described the process as “chaos” and “dramatic” in an interview with Devex. As a civil servant with the United Kingdom government, he helped oversee the aid cuts.
Dercon’s interview with Devex is the first time anyone from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has openly spoken with the media about how the aid cuts happened from the inside. A development economist, Dercon worked as chief economist in DFID between 2011 and 2017, then returned to work as an academic before taking a position with FCDO when it formed. He left the department in May, having just published a book.