UK aid and foreign affairs merger has brought ‘benefits,’ study finds

The United Kingdom’s controversial merger of its aid and foreign affairs departments has delivered “benefits” for development work in key countries in East Africa, a study based on almost 200 interviews argues. The 2020 creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office — widely criticized as chaotic for aid delivery — “shows early promise” toward its aim of integrating policy objectives, the Royal United Service Institute think tank found. RUSI’s research identified better “ambassadorial oversight of humanitarian and development work” in Sudan, and both “increased diplomatic engagement in health-related work” and “better links between trade and development initiatives” in Kenya, for example. The merger is “generally considered beneficial in Somalia and Sudan,” the study argues, based on responses from government officials, academics, and civil society — although some in Ethiopia and Kenya warned of damage to the U.K.’s “hard-won reputation for aid and development leadership.” “We found benefits, through our research, for the delivery of aid and development, although this was not across the board,” one of the study’s authors, Michael Jones, told Devex. “There were tangible examples where aid, development and diplomatic engagement had married up in an interesting way, for example, in Ethiopia, over conflict de-escalation and respect for humanitarian law.” Jones, a research fellow in RUSI’s terrorism and conflict team, said the benefits were seen where there was some existing integration between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development teams. “They translated, post-merger, into unified teams that were building on those pre-existing experiences. The merger was able to leverage that,” he said. The verdict did not seek to downplay the initial problems the merger caused, with “software not linked up properly and concerns over an exodus of staff and a loss of technical expertise,” Jones acknowledged. The RUSI study “Furthering Global Britain? Reviewing the Foreign Policy Effect of UK Engagement in East Africa” involved 182 interviews, including a “substantial number” on the ground in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. It sought to analyze changes since the March 2021 Integrated Review of policy — concluding, overall, that East Africa “has not been allotted the resources or level of attention” the review promised. The U.K. is perceived to have “declining influence,” as China and Russia, Turkey, and the Gulf states flex their muscles. The country is also seen by some as “less principled” than countries such as Denmark and Sweden over “human rights and gender,” the study says. A U.K. focus on “the use of aid for poverty reduction” was broadening into “focusing more explicitly on the national interest and on establishing wider partnerships,” it states. However, Jones argued that “rhetoric” in the Integrated Review had not, in practice, led to a “clear revolutionary shift in use of aid” in East Africa — or at least not yet. “How aid fits in with the U.K.’s other objectives is in the process of changing, but I don’t think it means, at the moment, that there has been an upheaval,” he said. “What this project shows, along with other research, is that what is in documents and the government’s rhetoric does not necessarily translate into clear changes in the operational reality.”