Policy Updates

On April 14, 2024, the C7 published a statement ahead of the G7 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Capri from April 17-19, 2024, where the group called on the foreign ministers to take concrete action to promote human rights as well as the common interests of humanity and the planet.

The C7 advocated that the G7 ministers reaffirm their commitment to developing long-term peace-building strategies that address persistent structural challenges at the basis of conflicts, ensure food security even in fragile settings, and address a profound transformation of food systems. The group also called upon their governmental counterparts to ensure safe and regular migration channels and commit to protecting migrant rights.

On March 24, 2024, BOND published a new manifesto setting out the steps the next UK government should take to help deliver on the SDGs and work in solidarity with its partners.

The manifesto is based around seven key asks:

• Act as a responsible and ambitious development partner. This includes returning ODA to 0.7% of GNI and providing new and additional resources for meeting global climate finance and ensuring the ODA program is headed by a cabinet-level minister with dedicated and well-resourced staff;
• Create an equitable and sustainable international financial system that works for people, nature, and the climate. This includes supporting a UN sovereign debt workout mechanism to deal with unsustainable debt in lower-income countries, pursuing an ambitious MDB reform agenda that increases their provision of resources and makes their governance more representative, and supporting a universal UN Framework Convention on tax;
• Recommit to the SDGs and ‘leaving no one behind. This includes ensuring UK development programs focus on those most in need, promoting gender transformative approaches to sustainable development, acknowledging care as an economic issue and a right and build the care economy in line with the 5Rs framework{title"recognition, reduction, redistribution, representation and reward"} for care work, and scaling up efforts to deliver universal access to basic services;
• Do our fair share to tackle the global climate and biodiversity crises. This includes ensuring all ODA is aligned with the Paris Agreement, providing genuinely new and additional grant finance for the Loss and Damage Fund;
• Develop a new approach to UK trade and private sector investment. This includes introducing new legislation that mandates companies, the financial sector, and the public sector operating in the UK to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence. It also holds them to account for failures, reduce the volume of UK funding being used to capitalize BII until it reforms to ensure it does more to contribute to poverty reduction;
• Promoting stability, security and effective crisis responses. This includes providing the UK’s fair share to support humanitarian crises, championing locally led approaches to anticipatory crisis prevention, action and resilience, establishing a prevention-focused national security outlook which focuses on preventing crises as well as responding to them; and
• Protect and promote rights, freedoms and civic space. This includes prioritizing meaningful partnerships with human rights defenders, including indigenous communities, women, LGBTQI+ advocates, migrant rights advocates and environmental defenders, removing restrictions on civil society campaigning domestically, and working with other governments to reverse restrictions on civic space in public debate and policymaking.

On March 11, 2024, the CLARE partnership between the UK and Canada’s IDRC launched 17 research projects designed to build climate resilience and reduce vulnerability in LICs and LMICs, valued at CAD180 million (US$133 million).

The research projects aim to support socially inclusive and sustainable action to build resilience to climate change and natural hazards in African partners and the Asia-Pacific region. Researchers in recipient countries are leading or co-leading the research, which will embed gender equality and inclusion principles and will address a wide range of climate change issues in the fields of agriculture, health, urban adaptation, water security, among others.

On January 19, 2024, the UK government announced that it has accepted all the recommendations made by the ICAI's review of the Blue Planet Fund, which included GBP500 million (US$599 million) in ODA for a DEFRA-managed fund aimed at protecting the marine environment and reducing poverty in low- and middle-income countries.

The review also recommended:

• Improving DEFRA management of the fund and appointing more staff to manage the fund;
• Strengthening cross-government strategic oversight over the fund. The UK government will conduct a rapid review to explore how to strengthen the functions of the JMB, the FCDO and DEFRA body responsible for oversight of the fund;
• Focusing all programs under the fund are focused on poverty reduction as their primary focus. DEFRA has committed to commissioning a review of the global evidence base on the linkages between poverty, and protecting and restoring the marine environment; and
• Ensuring greater effort is made to engage partner stakeholders in the programming process. DEFRA is committed to ensuring that partner voices are heard in all future programming.

On December 27, 2023, the UK government announced that it would commit GBP67 million (US$80 million) to the 2025-2027 replenishment of the IFAD.

IFAD is a UN agency dedicated to supporting those living in extreme poverty in rural areas. Nearly half of the world’s population lives in rural areas, and smallholder farmers produce 70% of the food in low- and middle-income countries.

UK Minister for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell stated that the funding will boost food security, help alleviate poverty and support the environment. The UK has been a strong supporter of IFAD’s Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Program, which enables smallholder farmers to gain access to climate finance to support adaptation efforts and protect biodiversity.

On December 1, 2023, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced GBP1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion) in climate commitments at COP28, of which GBP887.8 million (US$1.1 billion) is considered new additional climate funding.

The announcements included up to GBP60 million (US$72 million) of funding for loss & damage, including up to GBP40 million (US$48 million) for the Loss & Damage Fund and a further GBP20 million (US$24 million) for funding arrangements for interventions such as early warning systems and disaster risk finance.

The announcements also included:

• Up to GBP500 million (US$ 599 million) for the Investment in Forests and Sustainable Land Use program, slated to work with the private sector to tackle the causes of deforestation and increase investment in sustainable forest and land management. The UK expects the program to mobilize a further GBP2 billion (US$2.4 billion) in private investment;
• GBP30 million (US$34.9 million) for the REDD Early Movers program, which provides funding to countries on the condition of reducing deforestation and support indigenous and local communities;
• GBP316 million (US$378 million) for energy innovation projects including GBP185 million (US$221 million) via the UK’s Ayrton Fund for a planned UK-led Climate Innovation Pull Facility, which will use market incentives to create demand for innovations in developing countries on green energy;
• GBP44 million (US$53 million) in climate investments from BII, the UK’s development finance institution;
• Up to GBP45 million (US$54 million) in support to the Just Rural Transition Support Program, in partnership with the World Bank;
• Up to GBP39 million (US$47 million) for the Just Transitions for Water Security program;
• GBP10 million (US$12 million) for the FAO-led Forest and Farm Facility, specifically for Africa; and
• Up to GBP80 million (US$95.9 million) for the UK Partnering for Accelerated Climate Transitions, to help countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America reduce emissions by engaging in renewable energy projects, sustainable transport, and land use.

On November 30, 2023, the UK ICAI released its rapid review of the UK’s Blue Planet Fund, which criticized management that has led to duplicated work in some areas and gaps in delivery in other areas.

In January 2021, the government established the GBP500 million (US$599 million) Blue Planet Fund, to support low- and middle-income countries reduce poverty and protect ocean biodiversity. The fund is managed jointly by the Defra and the FCDO, with Defra in the strategic lead.

The review found that key management processes were missing, including establishing monitoring, evaluation and learning processes, and that there had been inadequate consultation on country and regional needs. It also found that there was a lack of coordination and coherence between Defra and FCDO, which resulted in duplicated work in some areas and gaps in delivery in others. The review also noted that it was not always clear how the fund was contributing to poverty reduction, and raised concern about administrative costs being charged by Defra’s arms-length bodies to deliver parts of the fund, which were higher than the international development norm.

The review recommended that formal core central management functions be put in place and that cross-government oversight of the Fund be strengthened.

On November 20, 2023, the UK partnered with the government of UAE, who are the forthcoming hosts of COP28, and the government of Somalia to host a Global Food Security Summit in London.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and UAE Minister for Climate Change and Environment Mariam Almheiri opened the summit. They were officially supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CIFF.

The summit gathered representatives from more than 20 countries. It had the stated goal of focusing international attention on the increasing global good security crisis and boosting action against hunger and malnutrition, including through innovations in science and technology. Almost 1 billion people were severely food insecure in 2022, and more than one in three people in the world were not able to afford a healthy diet in 2023.

The UK government launched its new White Paper on International Development at the summit, and also announced:

• Up to GBP100 million (US$120 million) to respond to food security crises and their impacts in the world’s hunger and malnutrition hotspots, including Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, the Sahel, Afghanistan, and Malawi;
• Up to GBP100 million (US$120 million) to build resilience to climate shocks and provide food security for the most vulnerable families in Somalia to avert future humanitarian crises; and
• An extra GBP16 million (US$19.2 million) for the Child Nutrition Fund, inaugurated at the Summit, which is a new UNICEF initiative aimed at coordinating national governments and CSOs against child malnutrition.

The summit also saw the launch of the new CGIAR UK science center to develop new climate-resilient crops and identify risks to global food systems. The new virtual hub will help to link UK scientists with global research initiatives to develop climate- and disease-resistant crops.

The end of the summit produced a joint Ministerial Statement by the UK, UAE, and Somalia that urged the international community to address underlying causes of food insecurity, act earlier to prevent crises, and work towards delivering more resilient agriculture and food systems in the face of climate change. The declaration called on governments to sign the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action ahead of COP28 in UAE on November 30, 2023, in order to support policy tools and resources needed to enable a transition to sustainable food systems.

On November 1, 2023, the UK government announced that it will provide GBP38 million (US$46 million) to a new GBP80 million (US$96 million) global initiative to speed up the use of AI to support international development.

The announcement was made at the inaugural AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, UK. The initiative, which is also being supported by Canada, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the US, and partners in Africa, aims to utilize AI to combat inequality and boost prosperity, primarily in Africa. It will focus on building the capacity of and supporting African AI expertise to address long-standing development challenges.

The UK’s funding will come from a new phase of the UK AI for Development Programme. The following goals were listed as priorities until 2028:

• Funding post-graduate training and fellowships in AI in African universities;
• Investing in innovators building models with data that accurately represent the African continent;
• Fostering responsible AI governance to help African countries mitigate the risks of AI; and
• Enhancing the Sub-Saharan African voice on how to use AI to further the UN SDGs.

On October 30, 2023, the UK and the African Union Commission held their first High-Level Dialogue in London.

The meeting included a series of technical roundtables covering issues including political affairs, peace and security, agriculture, rural development, the blue economy, and sustainable development. Attendants also held a high-level discussion with the Minister for Development and Africa and senior FCDO officials that discussed issues in relation to Africa, including global health risks and cybersecurity.

The UK announced additional in support of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and flagship Silencing the Guns campaign. This included:

• GBP10 million (US$12 million) in stipends to support troops in Somalia; and
• GBP3 million (US$4 million) contribution through the FCDO’s Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme to support the Africa Centers for Disease Control and WHO emergency preparedness and response initiatives.

The meeting also refreshed the Memorandum of Understanding on UK - African Union cooperation, identifying areas of collaboration over the next few years. The next high-level dialogue will be held in 2025.

The meeting culminated in with a bilateral meeting between African Union Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat and UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden.