What are the implications of Britain's referendum on EU membership for international development? Kevin Watkins, Director of the Overseas Development Institute and newly appointed head of Save the Children UK, addresses that question in this second installment of a two-part contribution to Devex. Today, we publish Part 2, which looks at wider issues, including trade and foreign policy.
The European Union referendum campaign has seen appeals to national sovereignty confronted by warnings about the economic consequences of Brexit. While there are many different threads on both sides, one of the weaknesses of the Remain camp’s case has been a failure to take on the sovereignty argument — and to highlight the potential for engagement with the EU to generate twin-benefits for the U.K., and for Britain’s leadership in international development.
This is the central theme in an important contribution to the EU debate by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In his recent book “Britain: Leading Not Leaving,” he makes the case that a mix of national autonomy and deeper cooperation with the EU could play a vital role in addressing global challenges such as job creation, infrastructure investment, tax evasion, security and the protection of basic rights.
About the author
Kevin Watkins
Kevin Watkins is the chief executive of Save the Children UK. He joined the Overseas Development Institute as executive director in June 2013. He is a former nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, and was previously director and lead author of the U.N.'s Human Development Report And the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. Before joining the U.N., he worked for 13 years at Oxfam. He is a visiting professor of international development at the London School of Economics and senior visiting fellow at Oxford University's Global Economic Governance Program.
