'Upheaval and crisis': FCDO's first year

As the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office marked its first birthday on Sept. 2, its leader, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, fought to save his job while outrage grew over his handling of the Afghanistan crisis. While he remains in the post, it was an ignominious way for the department to celebrate the one-year anniversary. Skeptics of FCDO’s performance thus far might suggest that it was also fitting. FCDO’s first year was characterized by crises of pandemic and policy. Formed from the merger of the Department for International Development and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, FCDO was launched to “unite our aid with our diplomacy and bring together our international effort,” according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who unexpectedly announced the move on June 16, 2020. The position of international development secretary was eliminated, and officials set out to build a “blended new organization.” But organizing that new body — which is still getting settled and set to continue losing staffers — sucked up massive amounts of time and energy, and this was followed by the country’s hugely draining and much protested aid cuts, which were announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Nov. 25, less than three months after FCDO opened. “The whole year for FCDO has been damage limitation. From its inception until today, their only task has been to make the best of a bad situation,” said Ranil Dissanayake, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. “The way I would judge this first year was really not so much about the positive — building a great new vision — but: Did they avoid total disaster? I think they did slightly better than I thought they would do, but that’s not to say they did well.” He cited concerns about falling aid transparency standards, an exodus of professionals with development expertise, and an inability to measure how effectively the department spends its budget. “It’s been a crazy year of huge upheaval and crisis,” said Stephanie Draper, CEO at Bond, the U.K. network for NGOs, referencing the merger, aid cuts, and new strategic priorities. “And it feels like [FCDO is] just lurching from crisis to crisis.” International development did not significantly feature in the government’s key Integrated Review foreign policy document, leaving the department to work to seven vaguely defined priorities — such as global health and climate change — rather than a plan. An international development strategy is currently in preparation, but as Draper noted, it is one of many strategies being devised by the department. Raab’s leadership has also been sorely criticized both outside and inside the government, with complaints spilling out into broad daylight as fury mounted over his management of the situation in Afghanistan, which saw mass evacuations following the country’s swift takeover by the Taliban. “I don’t disagree with anything in the Economist editorial,” a senior FCDO official told Devex, referring to a scathing assessment of the foreign secretary’s performance by the outlet, which described him as not “up to the job.” According to the article, “Some officials have taken to calling him ‘five i’s’, a double reference to the ‘five eyes’ arrangement that sees Britain share intelligence with America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and what they see as his attributes: insular, imperious, idle, irascible and ignorant.” Asked what the department’s biggest successes were in its first year, FCDO did not cite specific examples but responded that the U.K. was a “world leader” in international development and one of the largest aid donors in the G-7 group of nations. “Bringing together diplomacy and development, alongside our international partners we will continue to tackle major global challenges, working as a force for good in the world,” said FCDO’s statement. “This year we will spend more than £10 billion [$13.8 billion] in aid to provide urgent humanitarian support to those who need it most, get more girls into school and support the international recovery from COVID-19.” The department isn’t alone in its inability to say specifically what has gone well. When asked by Devex, many development experts could not cite any examples of what they thought FCDO’s successes were in the first year, and a tweet asking for suggestions was met mainly with sarcasm. “It’s difficult to point to a shining example of something going well for the FCDO,” said Lauren McEvatt, a consultant who works frequently with African governments on development-related issues. McEvatt was sympathetic to the merger but said it is too early to tell how effective FCDO has been after its reactive first year. Fred Carver, a researcher specializing in the United Nations, suggested that the U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali has been “absolutely fantastic” but said it is “unclear how much credit the FCDO can take,” as the Ministry of Defence has implemented much of the mission. Meanwhile, relations between Raab and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace are reported to have been made particularly tense by the Afghanistan crisis. The incipient Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance, a collaboration with Fijian officials, has had a “promising start” but is still in its “early days,” according to Ian Mitchell, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Mitchell himself is working on the project but said he would support it even if he weren’t. Dissanayake also found some room for optimism, praising the department's seven global challenge priorities, despite one notable omission. “Poverty is not listed explicitly, but it's hard to think of a way of doing those priorities that doesn’t do poverty. If they stick to the priorities and make a dent in them, that’s good,” he said. Dissanayake added that he was “pleased to have seen a lot of ambassadorial appointments go to people with deep development experience,” citing Peter Vowles to Myanmar, Jonny Baxter to South Sudan, Kate Foster to Somalia, and Laure Beaufils to the Philippines and Palau. “In those countries, the U.K.’s interests are primarily development interests. So having someone who is an expert in that area can only be good to further the U.K.’s interest and our ability to do development work in those countries well,” he said. He argued that for ambassador roles, “especially in those posts where there is a history of conflict, problems of political commitment to development, one of the most important things we can do in those places is to help shift the political bargain to an equilibrium which favors development outcomes.” “The whole year for FCDO has been damage limitation. From its inception until today, their only task has been to make the best of a bad situation.” --— Ranil Dissanayake, policy fellow, Center for Global Development Bond’s Draper said she was pleased with “some progress” on the department’s open societies policy combining work on the civic space and human rights, a policy which had “a great deal of potential to be realized.” But Draper’s comment highlights a key thread uniting the more positive comments — excepting those on peacekeeping in Mali — toward FCDO: They are all about the department’s potential for success rather than tangible achievements. For many, that is simply not good enough, especially as a functioning DFID — renowned for its health leadership — was closed during a pandemic. “Regrettably I think the overall performance of the U.K. in global health this year has been utterly pathetic,” said Rob Yates, director of the Chatham House think tank’s global health program. Yates said the U.K. has not shown leadership in distributing COVID-19 vaccines equitably or enabling other countries to make their own — a problem compounded by “slashing aid financing, including to health,” with “programs being cut to the bone.” He asked, “What message is this sending to the world in terms of us taking health equity seriously?” Toni Pearce, head of government relations at Oxfam, was blunt on the effect of cutting the aid budget and programs. “The message that sends globally and to civil society is that [development] has been deprioritized, and I think that’s very hard to argue with,” she said.