Labour’s new development chief lays out her vision for UK aid

World development leaders want the United Kingdom to be “a reliable partner” again rather than reverse spending cuts or restore a separate aid department, the country’s opposition Labour Party says as it eyes election victory. In her first interview as Labour’s new international development shadow minister, Lisa Nandy refused to commit to returning the U.K. to spending 0.7% of national income on aid within five years, telling Devex: “I can't make that commitment, it just wouldn't be honest.” Nandy, who was appointed to the role on Sept. 4, also suggested Labour will not bring back a separate aid department if reforms by the current international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, to give development greater autonomy within the merged Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, prove successful. “We’ve watched with interest what Andrew Mitchell has been doing to repair some of the damage that was done,” she told Devex. “It remains to be seen whether the structural changes that he’s made are sufficient to really deliver.” Instead, Nandy — who attended last month’s United Nations General Assembly summit in New York — argued the senior figures she met from the U.N., World Bank, and low-income countries have a different priority for a Labour reset. “They want to see Britain play a full role again, in thought leadership and in bringing innovation, capacity building, and the expertise that we have in specific areas, like medicine and support from British universities. To be reliable long-term partners,” she argued. She acknowledged that not returning to 0.7% will “disappoint” some people, but said: “That’s not the sense I’ve got from people working in international development, either here or across the world.” Nandy also said Labour would seek to build on the huge growth of development finance under the current Conservative government — which has recently been praised for its work guaranteeing multilateral bank loans to lower-income countries — rather than the old focus on higher state spending. There would be no return to the “condescending hand-out relationship of old, we’re not interested in that,” Nandy said. “What we’re not doing is arriving back on the global stage to tell people that we’re back to save them. We recognize developing countries are pioneering their own approaches.” The interview took place as observers focus sharply on Labour’s policy work. The party enjoys a steady over 15-point lead in opinion polls, with an election likely within 12 months. Nandy was an unexpected appointment to the development brief in September and serves under David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, mirroring the Conservatives’ set-up in government. A review set up by Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader, is exploring whether to restore a separate aid department — or settle for a development “agency” within FCDO with proper independence instead. Nandy said the party will announce its decision well before the election and will also set out firm economic tests for when to reverse the Conservatives’ cut to spending 0.5% of GNI on aid, which swiped about £4 billion ($4.9 billion) a year from the budget. Her priority, she said, will be projects to help women and girls, an area hit particularly hard by the U.K.’s spending cuts of recent years. “Unless you make women and girls an absolute priority, and a core part of the development strategy, you probably can’t achieve the global goals,” Nandy said, adding: “There’s so much evidence that women spend development money more effectively for the entire community.” But she stressed her belief that development has “changed dramatically” since Labour set up the now defunct Department for International Development in the 1990s, explaining: “There will always be a need for aid and for crisis aid, but we want to shift the focus to systemic change and how we help countries to solve their own long-term problems.”