Submission to the International Development Committee's Inquiry: The Future of UK Aid and Development Assistance
Submitted by: Aidan Alexander
Date: 14 November 2025
This evidence is submitted in response to the International Development Committee’s inquiry into the future of UK aid. What is my interest and expertise in this matter?
● I am a UK taxpayer who has a long-standing commitment to effective global development, having personally donated tens of thousands of pounds to global aid charities over many years.
● My professional experience provides a practical, evidence-based perspective on this issue. I previously ran an incubator program for evidence-based global health and development charities at Ambitious Impact. This role involved rigorous assessment of which interventions deliver the highest impact per pound spent and supporting practitioners to operate charities as cost-effectively as possible.
● This professional experience has been supplemented by direct field visits to implementing partners — such as Ansh, which delivers life-saving neonatal care to underweight newborns in India. This has given me frontline insight into the challenges of implementation and the enablers of making real change in global development.
My evidence will address two specific questions from the inquiry, focusing on maximising value for money and empowering local delivery.
Recommendation: Prioritise direct funding for proven interventions over technical assistance
To genuinely empower local delivery, the UK should reverse its current emphasis, markedly reducing its outlay on technical assistance (TA). These funds should be redeployed from consultancy overheads and advisory services towards direct, untied grants for high-performing implementing organisations.
● Disconnect between spending and impact: The documented impact of technical assistance does not appear to justify its widespread use. A glaring issue is sustainability: rigorous reviews note that a vanishingly small number of TA studies — as few as 5% — even attempt to track long-term outcomes, making it impossible to verify lasting value.
● Partner governments' scepticism: This concern is echoed by partner governments. A large-scale survey covering 40 African government agencies (involving over 900 officials) revealed a strong perception that heavy reliance on external consultants actively impedes the development of durable local expertise, effectively "hollowing out" civil service capacity.
● The "capacity substitution" rrap: This leads to a well-documented phenomenon known as "capacity substitution," where external advisers perform state functions rather than enhancing them. The result is not sustainable capability, but a cycle of dependency that often necessitates further advisory contracts.
● A more productive alternative: A clear alternative exists. A consensus from evidence-based bodies (like the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel) and academic research (like CGD's cost-effectiveness work) points to "smart buys"—interventions with proven, high-impact track records that can be funded directly. Channelling ODA to trusted implementers like Gavi or the Global Fund is a prime example of this more efficient model.
In the FCDO's constrained budget environment, this pivot from advisory services to evidence-based direct grants would dramatically amplify development outcomes per pound, allowing the UK to sustain its global impact while building genuine local capability.
Recommendation: Adopt a 'strategic rigour' model for evaluation
To deliver genuine value for money and meet taxpayer expectations, the FCDO should concentrate its evaluation budget on gold-standard impact studies for its most strategic, high-value programmes. This is preferable to diffusing resources across low-level process evaluations for every minor project.
● Distinguishing what works from what doesn't: A large body of academic work confirms that rigorous evaluation designs (such as RCTs and high-quality quasi-experimental methods) are the most reliable way to determine if an intervention is actually working. This is critical because outcomes can differ wildly even for similar-looking projects.
● Avoiding "feel-good" failures: This strategic focus helps avoid scaling up programmes that look good on paper but deliver no real welfare improvements—a known risk exacerbated by publication bias and the "file drawer problem," where negative results are often left unpublished.
● Generating actionable intelligence: Pioneering organisations like J-PAL and 3ie have proven this model: investing in high-quality evaluations for scalable, high-budget interventions generates far more actionable intelligence per pound spent than a "tick-box" monitoring exercise for every grant.
● Delivering true public acountability: This model is public accountability. It answers the taxpayer's core question: "Did my money make a significant, lasting difference?" Knowing which flagship programmes deliver 10x returns is more valuable than holding process reports for minor grants. This is a model already being used by other effective donors, like the Danish and Dutch aid agencies, to improve their cost-effectiveness.
As the UK navigates a constrained fiscal environment, it has a critical opportunity to "do more with less" by becoming a more intelligent and evidence-led donor. By shifting funds from low-impact technical assistance to proven, direct grants, and by investing in rigorous evaluation of strategic interventions, the FCDO can maximise its impact, build genuine local capacity, and deliver outstanding value for money for the UK taxpayer.
Thanks for the opportunity to submit this evidence.