The Future of UK Development Policy

The UK was once seen as a leader in international development, but amid a series of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and spikes in energy and food prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has stepped back in recent years, with major aid cuts, a reduced focus on the poorest countries, and over a quarter of its aid budget being now spent in the UK. Where should the UK development policy go from here? 

CGD has elevated leading voices across the political spectrum in a series of conversations, including with the current Minister of State for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell and former Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Preet Gill, to set out their vision for the UK’s role on a global stage. 

And with the next UK general elections scheduled for July 4, CGD colleagues are also presenting proposals and recommendations for what the UK’s future role in international development should be. Explore our work—from innovative policy proposals, to recent events, as well as more in depth research, below: 

More from the Series

Blog Post
CGD Podcast: UK Election Reflection with Stefan Dercon and Laura Chappell
August 29, 2024
Following the UK general election, CGD's Ranil Dissanayake speaks with Stefan Dercon from the Blavatnik School of Government (and CGD) and Laura Chappell from the Institute for Public Policy Research about the unique challenges presented by today's development landscape, the key drivers of economic ...
Blog Post
How Should the New Labour Government Rebuild Britain’s Approach to International Development?
July 09, 2024
In this blog, we highlight three areas for newly appointed Development Minister Anneliese Dodds and Foreign Secretary David Lammy to focus on. In particular, we set out first how to implement their commitment to multilateralism before identifying necessary fixes to the budget, but also to capability...
Blog Post
Money, Ministries, Motives, and Meh: How Might the Election Change UK Development Policy?
June 20, 2024
The UK election is at hand. The campaign has been dominated by questions of what might change in the UK (or not). But there’s been relatively little attention on overseas and specifically, foreign and development policy. What are the main political parties pledging?
Blog Post
How Labour Should Do International Development: Five Things to Prioritise
March 14, 2024
Since the absorption of the Department for International Development (DFID) into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, there has been a clear pattern in the fortunes of the development function of the department, every decision taken made the UK’s development function worse: less impactful, less effi...
Blog Post
DFID 2.0…? Some Wild-ish Speculation on UK Development Cooperation, 2025-2030
February 27, 2024
In the UK context the main discussion of UK development policy amid all of these headwinds has been around the current government’s new ‘white paper’, which seeks to set UK development policy to 2030 and tried to be cross-party. That said, it could have a very short shelf life as presumably any inco...
Blog Post
Will a New (Labour) UK Chancellor Do Any More for Global Development?
February 07, 2024
In the coming weeks, the official opposition party—Labour—is expected to be granted access to civil servants to discuss their policy agenda to enable planning. Election manifestos will also be finalised shortly. But will Labour do any more for global development than the Conservatives have?
Blog Post
Doing Development Better: How Should the ‘D’ in FCDO Be Organized?
January 25, 2024
We set out and assess in the UK context the four broad models that have been used to manage development arrangements by most OECD donor countries.