It is one of the most obscure committees within the U.K. government, but it is helping to deliver a big increase in aid spending overseas after years of devastating budget cuts.
One year after Andrew Mitchell, the then-newly installed international development minister, set up what he dubbed a “star chamber” — to get a grip on chaotic allocations of official development assistance — there is tentative evidence that order is being restored.
Spending is now rising sharply at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, helping to enable a £1 billion ($1.27 billion) humanitarian relief pot and a £150 million “resilience and adaptation” fund to help low-income nations prepare for climate disasters, and falling at the domestic departments which were grabbing more and more of a shrinking ODA pot.