Policy Updates

On November 13, 2024, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced greater support for countries at the forefront of the climate emergency, and emphasized the need for new partnerships to help tackle illegal deforestation and support indigenous people.

At COP29, he committed to a new initiative supporting forest tenure rights for indigenous and local communities across the Amazon Basin. GBP9 million has also been made available to local scientists working to protect the Congo Basin, home to the world’s largest tropical peatlands to help protect vital natural CO2 storage areas.

GBP100 million of funding will be given for BII's new Mobilisation Facility, which will drive up to GBP500 million (US$647 million) of private capital into investments that support other countries in their transition towards net zero.

Lammy also announced a guarantee of US$280 million to the new IFCAP initiative, which the UK is a founding partner together with the ADB, and other financing partners. The UK’s guarantee contribution will unlock US$1.2 billion of additional climate finance, at no upfront cost to the UK.

The UK's commitment to spend GBP11.6 billion (US$15 billion) of climate finance from 2021/2022 to 2025/2026 will continue to be honored. This includes at least GBP3 billion (US$3.8 billion) on nature, from which GBP1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) will be dedicated to protecting and restoring forests.

Lammy underscored the UK’s commitment to halting and reversing deforestation, to protect areas which play a key role in absorbing CO2 emissions. This includes announcing partnerships aimed at improving forest management and a new 10-year investment to reduce illegal logging. The program will build on long-running UK initiatives to improve the governance of forests, support the trade of sustainable forest products, and crackdown on illegal ones.

On November 11, 2024, the CGD, examined the GBP1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) UK ODA cuts within the context of the new government’s commitments, and explored what might be expected in the coming period.

In the new budget, total UK ODA, including the IDRCs, will drop from GBP15.3 billion (US$19.8 billion) in 2023, to GBP13.9 billion (US$18 billion) in 2024, and then rise to GBP14.3 billion (US$18.5 billion) in 2025.

The CGD noted that the UK needs to meet its ICF target which forms the UK’s commitment to international finance under the Paris Agreement. Given so much of UK ODA is made up of IDRCs, a significant proportion of what remains needs to be redistributed into climate finance, impacting emerging UK development policy priorities.

The UK is conducting reviews of their development policy led by Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, formerly Permanent Secretary at DFID, who has also held senior roles at the Bank of England, World Bank and IMF, London School of Economics, and Columbia University.

On November 10, 2024,climate experts report that wrote that Labour has been accused of failing to live up to its stance on climate leadership after October’s budget squeezed the funding the UK has available to help poorer countries deal with climate change, ahead of the COP summit,.

The UK is sending a team led by UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband who has promised to show global leadership on the climate crisis. Britain’s negotiating team acknowledges that the new climate finance goal must be larger than the previous agreement. However, activists warn that budget constraints being imposed by the Treasury put the UK in a difficult position.

The deal being agreed at COP29 will replace an old agreement from 2009 under which wealthier countries promised to provide poorer countries with US$100 billion annually to cope with climate change by 2020. Under this agreement, the UK committed to spending GBP11.6 billion (US$15 billion) in ODA for the climate crisis between FY2021/22 and FY2025/26.

The previous Conservative government had been slow to meet this pledge, with over GBP6 billion (US$7.7 billion) needing to be spent in 2024 for the UK is to meet its target.

On November 3, 2024, the UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy, started his trip to Nigeria and South Africa by making a statement indicating that economic growth will underpin work in both Nigeria and South Africa, and agreeing to develop a new UK-South Africa Growth Plan and Strategic Partnership with Nigeria.

The Foreign Secretary will also announce the start of a 5-month consultation process, to ensure African voices inform and sit at the very heart of the UK’s new approach to the continent. Accommodating the diverse needs and ambitions of 54 countries, the consultation will guarantee the UK's relationships across the African continent are based on mutual respect and partnership.

In Nigeria, the Foreign Secretary will sign a modern and progressive Strategic Partnership – the first of its kind between the:abbrUK and Nigeria. This new dialogue will cover the breadth of the:abbrUK-Nigeria areas of shared cooperation from growth and jobs to national security, tackling the climate and nature crisis to strengthening people-to-people ties.

Travelling on to South Africa, the Foreign Secretary will agree to develop a new UK-South Africa Growth Plan. South Africa is the UK's largest trading partner on the continent and this plan will allow trade to flourish even more through collaboration on market access, a new UK Trade Partnership program to boost South Africa exports, and a new program to increase the number of agricultural jobs in rural South Africa.

On October 31, 2024, Bond, the UK network for organizations working in international development, outlined their disappointment with the Chancellor's budget announcement.

The Bond blog post outlines that the government has introduced new cuts to the UK assistance program and pushed off returning the UK ODA budget to 0.7% of GNI indefinitely.

Bond's analysis notes that UK ODA will drop sharply from GBP15.3billion (US$19.8 billion) or 0.58% of GNI in 2023, to GBP3.7 billion (US$4.8 billion), 0.5% of GNI in 2024, with a slight increase to GBP14.3 billion (US$18.5 billion) in 2025 for a total of 0.5% of the GNI.

Bond noted that there was a commitment to bring asylum costs down, including by ending expensive hotel accommodation, but no tangible commitment to reforming the current approach of using UK ODA to cover the costs.

Bond also note that there are already pressures on the UK aid budget with multilateral pledge commitments and climate commitments that need to be made including for the IDA and for the UK's ICF.

On 23 September, 2024, the UK FCDO Minister David Lammy called for reform of the multilateral system at the UN Summit of the Future in New York.

Lammy noted that the Summit for the Future provided a chance for Member States to demonstrate responsible global leadership and ensure everyone’s needs are met, especially the most vulnerable.

Lammy proposed:

• Greater collective actions to prevent and end conflict, more significant support for international rule of law, and a more representative Security Council;
• Urgent action on the climate and nature crisis – here, he referenced the need to build a Global Clean Power Alliance; and
• Modernizing the approach to development to move away from a paternalistic attitude to one based on partnership and putting Indigenous people and local communities, including women and girls, at the center of decision-making on development programs.

On 20 September 2024, 71 UK CSOs, faith groups, and international development and climate NGOs wrote a public letter to the UK Prime Minister calling for increased ambition on international climate finance and domestic action at UNGA and COP 29.

The groups' called for the UK Prime Minister to:

• Restore the UK's reputation, return UK ODA commitments to 0.7% ODA/GNI and reverse last year’s changes to the way ICF is counted;
• Champion a New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance that delivers the scale of public finance needed;
• Commit to providing future UK ICF that is new and additional by putting in place polluter pays measures to generate new public finance fairly; and
• Raise ambition with a UK 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution NDC that sets a new global benchmark commensurate with the:abbrUK’s responsibilities and the urgency to keep 1.5°C alive.

On September 17, 2024, the UK FCDO Minister David Lammy used his first major policy speech to highlight the importance of tackling climate and nature emergencies.

Lammy noted that while conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have dominated his time, his primary focus will be tackling the most profound and universal threat to global order – the climate and nature emergency.

Lammy identified three key priorities moving forward:

• Building a Global Clean Power Alliance—This alliance will focus on scaling up global investment;
• Unlocking more climate and nature finance. Lammy noted that Africa is on the climate frontline yet receives just 3% of climate finance flows and debt services, accounting for an average of 10% of Africa’s GDP. Lammy will work to ensure London is a green global financial center, unlocking much-needed private sector flows and leading on international institutional reform; and
• Reverse the decline in global biodiversity by bolstering global efforts to protect 30% of the planet’s lands and oceans, securing an agreement on a Plastics Treaty, expanding successful development programs that protect biodiversity, and launching a new research program on water and nature.

Lammy concluded that there would be no global stability without climate stability.

On September 5, 2024, UK Minister for Africa Lord Ray Collins announced that the UK would be making a GBP25 million (US$30 million) investment in the African agri-sector to boost production and strengthen food security in the face of climate threats.

The minister announced the funding during his keynote speech at the AFSF in Rwanda. The funding will be allocated to AgDevCo, a UK-based African agribusiness investor. The funds will go towards its new US$50 million facility called AgDevCo Ventures. The new facility will focus on supporting small African agricultural enterprises, emphasizing African-owned and managed businesses.

The funding is expected to result in an increase in income of GBP128 million (US$153 million) for recipients by 2036.

On September 6, 2024, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy hosted a reception marking 75 years of the modern Commonwealth and called for the organization to focus on driving economic growth as well as tackling the climate crisis and education at its October Summit in Samoa.

Lammy noted that the UK considers a revived Commonwealth as vital to ensuring the government’s vision of reconnecting Britain with the world, calling on the family of nations to work together, draw on its diversity, and tackle the challenges of our time.

Lammy outlined that the Commonwealth should focus its attention on three key areas:

• Supporting economic growth: the combined GDP growth of the Commonwealth’s nations is expected to double from 2017 levels by 2027, and increasing investment flows are needed to take advantage of this. At the summit in Samoa, Lammy and other members will launch a comprehensive plan to boost investment and harness technology for all to enable shared and sustainable growth;
• Tackling the climate emergency: Lammy highlighted the need for coordinated action with partner countries to ensure a sustainable future for all. He emphasized the need to raise ambitions on the Climate Finance Access Hub and to do more to protect Small Island Developing States; and
• Boosting education: Lammy noted the importance of focusing on education. He emphasized the need to support more scholarships and learning amongst the Commonwealth nations, highlighting that 60% of the Commonwealth’s population are under 30 years old.