Submission from members of the Bond Conflict Policy Group[1] to the International Development Committee

From the Middle East, to Ukraine and Sudan, violent conflicts are proliferating and escalating at an alarming rate, impacting more countries than at any point since the Second World War.  Such conflicts drive the vast majority of humanitarian needs in the world today, while diverting crucial attention and resources from global movements to address poverty, gender inequality and climate change. The UK is not immune from their impacts, as they absorb 13.5 percent of the world’s economic activity[2] and disrupt critical supply chains, while forcibly displacing over 117 million people[3], exacerbating impacts of the climate crisis and creating conditions for transnational crime and armed groups to thrive.

The Government recognises that violent conflict is a defining global challenge. In his September speech at the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister urged UN member states to “put new energy and creativity into conflict resolution and conflict prevention, reverse the trend towards ever-greater violence…”. To meet the challenge, the Government can build upon existing resources and commitments, including those within the Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation and the White Paper on international development published in November 2023, which committed to strengthening the UK’s foresight and conflict prevention capabilities while integrating its security, development and diplomatic efforts to reduce the intensity and frequency of conflict.

Yet as the Government assesses the UK’s development capabilities, it is clear that the UK’s conflict prevention capabilities and partnerships have suffered from resource cuts and difficult institutional changes. Since 2016, UK Spending on peacebuilding, conflict prevention and resolution has plummeted from 4% of the UK aid budget to less than 1% in 2022[4]. Meanwhile, the UK Integrated Security Fund, formerly the Conflict Security and Stability Fund, has gradually shifted its focus from essential conflict prevention programming towards domestic, national security initiatives. The UK has also been without a cross-government conflict strategy since the 2011 Building Stability Overseas Strategy, developed in a very different geopolitical environment. On its current path, the UK may find itself unable to fully understand, anticipate and effectively respond to rapidly changing conflict dynamics in priority contexts, missing crucial opportunities to prevent violence and resolve the root causes of conflict.

We propose that the International Development Committee should assess the Government’s current conflict prevention capabilities and offer recommendations for how they can be enhanced to meet the evolving global challenge of violent conflict. Such an exercise should assess the Government’s ability to generate and use high-quality conflict analysis, leverage expertise on conflict. Specifically, it should explore how the Government is responding to the intersection of climate change and conflict but also how rapidly advancing digital technologies are impacting how conflicts emerge and evolve. At the same time, it should consider how gender is increasingly  weaponised as part of conflicts. In addition, the Committee should assess how conflict prevention resources are allocated within and outside of Government, offering insights as to how the right capacities and partnerships can be strengthened, prioritised and deployed as part of joined-up, whole of Government responses to conflict.