Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure best ethical practice by the NGOs it supports.

It is imperative that DFID’s partners show the moral leadership, systems and culture that are needed to protect vulnerable people. At the Safeguarding Summit, the Secretary of State announced new, enhanced and specific safeguarding Due Diligence standards for all organisations that DFID works with. This will include a review of the ethical practice of the NGOs that DFID partner, by assessing codes of conduct, how organisations identify and respond to incidents, and how risk management places safeguarding and beneficiaries at its core. These are being piloted from this week and will be rolled out shortly. New funds to organisations will not be approved unless they pass the new standards and they will be integrated into ongoing programme management.

Four working groups, that include civil society and independent experts, have also been established and are meeting this week to refine and test ideas further. They will take forward a number of areas, including how the aid sector can shift its organisational culture to tackle power imbalances and gender inequality. The groups will report back with concrete actions in time for the international Safeguarding Conference that the UK will host this autumn.