Shock return of aid ‘champion’ David Cameron prompts calls for UK shift

The surprise appointment of former United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron as its new foreign secretary has raised advocates’ hopes of a stronger focus in London on global poverty goals and the climate crisis. Cameron has been brought in from the cold by Rishi Sunak, the current U.K. leader, in a reshuffle widely seen as a shift toward the center ground — summed up by the sacking of the divisive anti-immigrant Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Monday. Aid organizations pointed out the former prime minister has been “a public champion of the 0.7% U.K. aid commitment, the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, and the need to tackle climate change,” both while in office and since his 2016 departure. “We urge him to continue to champion these issues,” said Gideon Rabinowitz, policy director at Bond, the network for U.K. aid groups, also expressing fresh hope for next week’s food security summit, which Bond fears will fall short of its goals. “We hope the Secretary of State will be able to help mobilize political will, coherent action, and new and much-needed resources,” Rabinowitz added, calling the one-day London summit “a critical opportunity” to address the issue. The summit, which the U.K. will co-host with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, aims to examine the causes of food insecurity and support countries facing the fallout of Russia’s Black Sea grain blockade. However, Cameron’s return prompted criticism of further upheaval in a key post — at a time of twin wars in Palestine and Ukraine — because he is the seventh occupant of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in just seven chaotic years. “The role requires building close relationships with counterparts across the world and high commissioners and ambassadors within the U.K.,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of the foreign policy think tank Chatham House. “If there is a single reason for the recognized weaknesses of British government in delivering what has been promised, it is the lack of expert knowledge in ministers and civil servants, who rotate between jobs often every year or two,” she said. “This move, designed to fix problems elsewhere in the cabinet, compounds that problem.” Because Cameron is not a member of parliament, MPs will be unable to question him on policy even as demands grow for Israel to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza. He has been given a peerage and will sit in the House of Lords, the U.K. parliament’s upper chamber. Cameron has also been at the center of one of the biggest lobbying scandals of recent years when he earned millions acting for the financial services firm Greensill Capital — and, as recently as last month, was reported to be working as a lobbyist on behalf of a controversial China Belt and Road project. Even a close ally, the former culture minister Ed Vaizey said he was “totally and utterly gobsmacked” by Cameron’s return, replacing James Cleverly who had been foreign and development secretary for only 14 months. In his previous role as Treasury chief, Sunak drove through the massive cuts that slashed U.K. aid spending from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income — condemned by Cameron in 2020 as “breaking a promise to the poorest people and the poorest countries in the world.” That issue is parked, the Treasury watchdog concluding Sunak’s economic tests for going back to 0.7% will not be met before 2028. But aid groups tell Devex they hope Cameron can inspire greater interest in development issues after Sunak snubbed both France’s financing summit in June and the United Nations General Assembly discussion about the SDGs in September. Domestic strategy for international development will be set by the “white paper” drawn up by the Development Minister Andrew Mitchell, who has sought cross-party backing. It will be published next Monday. Cameron posted on X Monday that Gaza and Ukraine were among a “daunting set of international challenges,” adding that the U.K.’s “Aid and Development capabilities are some of the finest assets of their kind anywhere in the world.” Save the Children UK said Cameron’s “to-do list” was to push for a Gaza cease-fire, “reverse the aid cuts you opposed,” and “prioritize climate action and tackling poverty and hunger.”