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The Issue.
The UK has a long and proud history of supporting international development. Since 2015, the UK has become a superpower in international development and will retain its position as one of the top three donors globally.
The case for leadership in international development is grounded in Conservative values and is in our national interest, as well as the interests of the world’s most disadvantaged and fragile communities.
However, with this leadership role comes responsibility, not only to those whom we look to help but also to the UK tax-payers.
CFID Supports:
Making sure the UK’s aid budget is transparent and achieving value for money.
UK aid is already the most heavily scrutinized part of the Government’s budget. All FCDO spend above £500 is now published on its website. Under DfID the threshold for ministerial approval of projects was reduced from £40m to £5m. CFID will help support measures to ensure that the efforts made by DfID to check the risks of corruption and only provide funding if it is clear it will be used for proper purposes are continued under the FCDO.
We support accountability mechanisms such as ICAI and the select committees designed not only to hold those who spend ODA to account but also those who deliver ODA on behalf of UK tax-payers.
An ethical and effective supply chain.
CFID believes it is critical to ensure that UK companies and organizations involved in delivering UK ODA do so in an ethical, effective and cost-efficient way, in line with Conservative values.
Resilience and self sufficiency
As Global Britain becomes more outward looking, the case for investment in international development becomes stronger in order to help developing economies become resilient and self-sufficient.
Self-sufficient countries with robust and transparent institutions are better equipped to:
- engage on a more equal footing in international markets leading to growth and prosperity for their citizens.
- resist malign foreign or corrupt influence from authoritarian regimes.
- secure and manage their own natural and social resources with stronger governance and accountability measures.
Conservative Party Manifesto Pledges:
The Manifesto Pledge:
Do more to help aid recipient countries become self sufficient
The ultimate goal of development should be to end aid dependency through growth and jobs. FCDO and formerly DfID transformed the way Britain’s aid budget is spent to help developing countries improve their business environments and generate their own tax revenues.
What has the Conservative Party done?
The UK has provided 68.9 million people, including 35.9 million women, with access to financial services to help them work their way out of poverty. Unleashing prosperity in developing countries helps end aid dependency, empowers countries to stand on their own two feet and become UK trading partners. UK aid also helped create 6.5m jobs and livelihoods via the international organisations (like the World Bank) that we support. Businesses backed by British aid in Africa have created three million jobs and generated $9 billion in new tax revenue that can be invested in improving vital public services like healthcare and education. DfID’s support has helped millions of people secure their land and property rights. UK aid has helped countries fight organized crime and strengthen anti-smuggling operations, vital to help those nations but also protecting the UK in the process.
What next?
In the coming years the Conservative government will support efforts to train professionals, build robust central banks, and other institutions to strengthen developing economies and enhance stability in financial sectors.
The Manifesto Pledge: Support rights of every girl to have 12 years of quality education
What has the Conservative Party done?
Our development budget has helped over 40 million children go to primary school.
In 2018 the UK helped launch the Leave No Girl Behind Campaign to unleash the potential and prioritise education for girls. Since then the Conservative Government has announced a further £515 million to help get over 12 million children, half of them girls, in to school.
What next?
Programmes such as The Girls’ Education Challenge Phase 2 will enable up to 1 million marginalised girls to continue to learn, complete primary school and transition on to secondary education. A further 500,000 highly marginalised adolescent girls, who are out of school, will also be targeted to gain literacy, numeracy and other skills relevant for life and work. It is estimated that at least 400,000 girls will complete junior secondary school in the first four years of the extension.
The Manifesto Pledge: Work to eliminate preventable maternal and newborn deaths by 2030
What has the Conservative Party done?
The UK has helped over 55.1 million children under 5, women of childbearing age and adolescent girls to receive decent nutrition. Good nutrition plays a key role in child development – children who are malnourished are more likely to get sick and die.
Further, in the year 2018-2019 alone, the UK helped to prevent 7.3 million unintended pregnancies through planned parenting education programmes; save 8,300 maternal lives; and prevent 89,900 stillbirths and 52,900 new-born deaths.
What next?
Build on existing efforts to support women’s rights, save lives in line with SDGs 3.7 and 5.6 by funding activities to improve the availability, quality, supply and access to key reproductive health commodities, including for those in hard to reach areas. To help prevent the use and access to unsafe abortion and to support resilient health systems that are equipped to deliver quality services for maternal, newborn, and child health.
The Manifesto Pledge:
Lead the global fight by delivering target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
What has the Conservative Party done?
The UK has cut carbon emissions by more than any similar developed country and is now the world leader in offshore wind
What next?
Use COP26 summit to challenge global partners to match the UKs ambitions
Set up new international partnerships to tackle deforestation and establish a £500million Blue Planet Fund to protect oceans from plastic pollution, warming sea temperatures and overfishing
The Manifesto Pledge:
- Further developing independent Magnitsky-style sanctions regime,
- Supporting marginalised communities in the developing world and hosting first international LGBT conference in UK,
- Implementing Truro recommendations on protection from faith-based persecution,
- Promote international media freedom and eradicate human trafficking and modern slavery.
What has the Conservative Party done?
The UK supported freer and fairer elections in 13 countries in which 1 million people voted, helping to create more stable countries and durable allies.
And in Iraq, there was more than a million displaced peoples, whose lives had been devastated by Daesh. They were able to safely return home thanks to the UK Aid-funded mine clearance mission. Thanks to UK Aid, approximately 16,500 explosives, 800 suicide belts and 2,000 deadly explosives traps were cleared from schools, hospitals and roads.
The Global Human Rights sanctions regime gives the UK the power to stop those involved in serious human rights abuses and violations from entering the country, channelling money through UK banks, or profiting from our economy. Alexander Lukashenko is the first leader to have been sanctioned under the regime, which was introduced in July 2020.
What next?
The UK will work to strengthen democratic institutions and reinforce how vital a free press is for open societies and a fundamental freedom which must be protected around the world. The UK will continue to promote the rule of law, call out violations of rights and freedoms and hold countries to their international obligations.
The Manifesto Pledge:
To lead the way in treatments for Ebola, Malaria (and Covid 19)
What has the Conservative Party done?
The UK has helped 3 million children receive vital immunisations, saving millions of lives and limiting the spread of disease to our shores.
Having given $1.6 billion, the UK is the second largest government donor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which vaccinates 400 million children every year.
Further, the UK has distributed 47 million bed nets to prevent malaria and has invested in malaria treatment, which means malaria deaths have fallen by a third.
The UK is already the biggest donor to GAVI, the global vaccine alliance. In June 2020 the UK helped to raise almost $9 billion to immunise another 300 million children against killer diseases, and GAVI also stands ready to help distribute a COVID-19 vaccine.
UK pledged up to £571 million to COVAX, a new initiative designed to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine across the world. Of this sum, £500 million will be for developing countries to protect themselves.
And however great the need for reform, the WHO, the World Health Organization, is still the one body that marshals humanity against the legions of disease. That is why the UK – global Britain – one of the biggest global funders of that organisation, will be contributing £340 million over the next 4 years, that’s an increase of 30%.
What next?
The UK will use its G7 presidency next year to create a new global approach to health security based on a 5-point plan to protect humanity against another pandemic.