International Development Policies

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, visiting developing countries with long and not necessarily benign relationships with the UK and working with their parliamentarians often brings a reassuring aspect: the receipt of sometimes lavish praise from counterparts for UK policies and activities in the arena of ODA—recognition that the UK is a world leader in international development policy.

So it is a pleasure to acknowledge that this debate starts from a high point. Nevertheless, we and the Government can always aspire to do better: first, on the UK’s role in establishing the global or sustainable development goals; secondly, on the importance of engaging Parliaments in the process, as alluded to in SDG 16; and finally, from my point of view, on the critical assessment of DfID’s approach to delivering development impact, fundamental to making policies more effective.

Much of 2015 has, in international development terms, been taken up with establishing universal agreement on what has become the 17 sustainable development goals. The APPG for Sustainable Development, of which I am a vice-chair, with the support of the NGO, Bond, stresses that we need our Government to push for strong, ambitious, integrated outcomes, with firm commitments to tackling inequalities and environmental sustainability. We need strong mechanisms to implement and monitor the new goals and targets at national and international levels, including for financing and implementation. To quote Hillary Clinton:

“What gets measured gets done”.

We need a commitment to a cross-party approach to implementing the SDG framework in the United Kingdom and internationally. In this regard, we need to ensure that both civil society and Parliament remain closely engaged in implementation of the framework at all levels, nationally, regionally and globally.

The UK Parliament’s commitment to allocate 0.7% of GNI to ODA sets an example that others are urged to follow. Nevertheless, Parliaments have too often been sidelined in discussions on ODA, resulting in low accountability for aid budgeting and delivery. Parliaments must become leaders in accountability at all levels to ensure that Governments continue to push to meet future objectives and international commitments, including international human rights standards. Development partners must be prepared to support into the future the role of Parliament in the law-making and oversight functions of parliamentarians and staff. Projects need to be developed to ensure Parliament’s key components have the capacity to deliver on the SDG objectives.

This brings me to the last of the three aspects I want to touch on: DfID’s approach to delivering development impact. In this regard, I refer again to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, in this case its Report 45, which proves to be an invaluable guide. It concluded that there are core elements for achieving a more consistent, deeper and sustainable impact—for example, the importance of investing in long-term impact rather than short-term results. There is a need to recognise that, with an average programme length of three years, transformational impact may be possible only over several programme cycles. Here I echo and support the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. This needs to be recognised explicitly in programme design. With three-quarters of DfID’s priority countries being conflict and fragile states, more modest objectives and longer-term programmes are needed to establish pathways out of fragility.

There is a strong argument that development programmes are most effective and deliver greatest impact where they adopt a flexible approach to delivery. A fundamental truth in effective development policy is that programme designs are best guesses and most effective when they take a problem-solving approach. These are only a few points drawn from a comprehensive study, which I nevertheless hope the Minister will reflect on in her reply.