UK Aid has helped transform the lives of millions of people living in poverty. The government’s own independent aid watchdog shows that aid spent by DFID is world-beating in terms of effectiveness and transparency. Far more so than other UK Government departments.
Stripping the Department for International Development (DFID) of its independence and folding it into the Foreign and Commonwealth office threatens the ability of UK Aid to deliver the biggest impact for the world’s most vulnerable people.
Furthermore, the timing couldn’t be worse for people living in poverty, when for the first time in a generation, COVID-19 is driving a dramatic increase in extreme poverty.
As our chair Rowan Williams said during the last general election campaign:
We need an intelligent and independent Department for International Development embedded in a government that thinks about long-term global stability. There is not much point in a development programme that co-exists – for example – with selling arms to states pursuing aggressive and brutalising wars with their neighbours.
Please contact your MP as soon as possible about this issue
Ask your MP to write to the PM, Boris Johnson to:
- Express your opposition to the proposed merger, which was not in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
- Let him know that you wish to see the government retain an independent department focussed on eradicating poverty.
- Ask that he consults with the leaders of the world's poorest countries who are recipients of DFID funding, and get their views on whether a proposed merger will help or hinder the battle against extreme poverty in their country.
- Ask that he takes particular note of the views of the 46 Commonwealth nations who receive DFID funding, and with whom he has pledged to 'forge stronger links'.