The merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office into the new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, announced mid-June, has created a range of questions as to what will change with the new aid project — especially in light of impending budget cuts.
DFID is the primary U.K. department responsible for the delivery of official development assistance — and FCO is also an implementing department. By analyzing the aid programs in implementation phase on DevTracker, Devex Analytics analyzed the differences between the two departments — in implementing partners, as well as differences in sector and geographic focus for over 1,700 programs — to identify potential shifts and predict how the two could merge.
According to DevTracker, DFID is responsible for 827 programs classified in the implementation phase, valued at £63.7 billion ($80.3 billion). FCO is responsible for 918 development programs in implementation but the value is significantly smaller, at £2.5 billion, averaging £2.8 million per program.