Interactive: What is DFID planning through 2020?

LONDON — What is the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development planning to spend through 2020? DFID released a new batch of country profiles showing how it is using bilateral aid for 2018 and 2019. The Devex team has extracted the most useful data from the profiles and created an interactive dashboard, to guide organizations as they put together their business development strategies. Overall, DFID’s projected bilateral spend fell slightly. The 2018 fiscal year budget released this summer showed a small, £11.1 million ($14.5 million) increase compared to the 2017 fiscal year budget released last year. Within that overall budget, humanitarian aid increased by £170 million, and funding fell most significantly in the “human development” category, by £191.4 million. Economic development also fell by about £129.8 million. Pakistan and Ethiopia were once again DFID’s most-funded countries, though total funding budgeted for both fell compared to last year’s plans. What am I looking at? The country profiles give projected annual budgets for 2018 and 2019 for DFID’s bilateral spend in various countries or regions of the department’s activities, as well as a breakdown of each geography’s 2018 budget in six “sectors:” Human development, economic development, humanitarian aid, governance and security, climate and environment, and partnerships. They also include a list of sample projects to be funded in each geography. Among the largest of these for 2018 are contributions to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (£100.1 million); the DRC Humanitarian Innovation, Response, and Reform program (£97.7 million); and the North East Nigeria Transition to Development Programme (£85.9 million). As with last year, the profiles don’t offer a complete picture of the U.K.’s bilateral aid spending. They exclude the increasing amount spent by other government departments, such as the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, through the cross-government strategy. This is no small chunk of cash: Non-DFID aid spending accounted for about 26 percent of the total aid budget in 2016 and is set to rise to 28 percent by 2020. The profiles also leave out crisis reserve funding, “centrally-managed” funding, and administrative costs. All in all, the DFID country profiles represent a projected £3.95 billion for 2018 — a little less than a third of the U.K.’s growing £13.4 billion aid budget — and £3.68 billion for 2019. If the UK aid budget is growing, why the drop in DFID’s bilateral spend? Though the U.K. aid budget has increased slightly with gross national income — it is set at 0.7 percent of the sum — this year’s country profiles show a reduction in DFID’s bilateral aid spending. There are a number of possible reasons for this: For one, more aid is being spent outside DFID, despite controversy around the accountability and transparency of these funds. In 2016, almost £2.5 billion of aid was spent through departments other than DFID, including the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (£696 million) and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (£504 million); as well as through cross-government funds such as the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (£601 million) and the Prosperity Cross-Government Fund (£38 million). There is some uncertainty around the future of aid spending through the European Union after the U.K. leaves the bloc on March 2019. For example, both last year and this year DFID contributed to the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey. In 2017, this contribution was the largest single project released in the country profiles at £124 million, though the profiles do not contain comprehensive lists of planned projects. The 2018 contribution to the same facility is reduced to £67.3 million. Funding will remain uncertain for this project until its new budget is approved in 2019, and until the parties agree on if and how the U.K. will contribute to EU external aid instruments. However, some countries saw modest increases in their budgets, such as Somalia (from £118 to £158 million for 2018) and Yemen (from £72 to £120 million for 2018). Want to know more? Explore the data and analyze your own focus areas with Devex’s interactive visualization of DFID country programs.