What the aid sector wants from the next UK government

With the United Kingdom likely to head into elections in the second half of this year, BOND, the network for development organizations in the U.K., has published a manifesto containing its key asks for the next government. At this stage, the opposition Labour Party is far ahead in the polls and widely expected to form the next government, with Labour member of Parliament Lisa Nandy expected to be the next development minister. The document is effectively a wish list of things that U.K. civil society wants on her to-do list when she gets into power. Key points in the BOND manifesto include: • A greater focus on locally led development. • More focus on humanitarian relief. • More money spent on the poorest people in the world. • Policies to support increased debt relief. • A commitment to a fairer tax system. • A return to spending 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance. • The restoration of an independent department to administer the aid budget, which has been absent from the U.K. since the Department for International Development merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to form the Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office in 2020. The manifesto also calls for a whole-of-government approach to address development issues, recognizing that on debt and tax in particular, an independent department cannot tackle the issues by itself and would need to work with the Treasury and other departments to make progress. Debt has been a growing issue for low- and middle-income countries in recent years, as rising interest rates, coupled with increased borrowing to get through the pandemic, have created a situation where restructuring is once again likely to be necessary. Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of BOND, told Devex the U.K. has an important role to play because many debt contracts are structured under English law due to the importance of the City of London as a financial center. The manifesto calls on the U.K. government to support a universal United Nations framework convention on tax. BOND said that tax law is negotiated largely at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — a members club for richer countries, which the global south does not have access to — and moving the discussion to the U.N. would allow all countries to negotiate on a level playing field. Greenhill told Devex that low- and middle-income countries currently lose out on tens of billions of dollars each year in revenue, particularly in taxing large corporations, because of the way tax treaties are structured. BOND is also pushing for a reduction in spending on refugees. While it’s a common trend across many countries to see more and more ODA spent on refugee costs, the U.K. is one of the few to lump all refugee costs into the ODA budget. While the current government did commit additional funds to meet the additional cost of refugee spending, it has still caused substantial reductions in the U.K. ODA budgets. Greenhill also emphasized how important it was that the U.K. was seen as an “ambitious and responsible” partner on the international stage and highlighted how much reputational damage had been done by the way the U.K. had reduced spending under the current Conservative Party. The proposals received strong cross-party support at a launch event in Parliament Wednesday. Andrew Mitchell, the current development minister, praised BOND’s approach and spoke about his own white paper that sets out a vision for development, which he said had cross-party support. Mitchell also claimed that he could “detect no difference” between the Conservative position on the aid budget and that of Labour. Nandy, who is likely to be the next development minister, did not attend the launch, but Lord Collins of Highbury, a Labour peer and shadow development minister in the House of Lords, appeared as her substitute at the event. Collins questioned whether Mitchell’s assertion was in fact the case — although his response was short on specifics about what the differences were.