SUBMISSION TO THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

KIVU INTERNATIONAL

About Kivu International

For over a decade Kivu International has designed and delivered successful low-cost, locally led and partnership-based development programmes in African, South Asian and Pacific countries. This decade of experience provides valuable insights relevant for the now fundamentally changing development landscape.

THE OPPORTUNITY: Reshaping Aid for a Changed World

The cutting of ODA to 0.3% of GNI in February 2025 leaves the FCDO with difficult choices. Despite increasing global humanitarian, health and climate crises, the outlook for UK international development appears at first glance to be bleak.

But despite the substantial spending cuts, Kivu International believes that there remains a real opportunity to constructively reform our approach to aid. We have seen from first-hand experience that lower spending does not necessarily have to mean lower development impact or a diminished UK voice.

Instead, FCDO has a unique opportunity to re-shape its approach and ensure that UK aid is ruthlessly focused on delivering the government’s key priorities: of forging stronger respect-based partnerships, whilst still maintaining to the extent possible the UK’s core commitments to tackling global humanitarian, health and climate crises.

THE FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT: From paternalism to partnership

FCDO still instinctively too often adopt a ‘top-down’ approach to aid programmes, selecting issues it thinks matter and giving an impression of “we know best”. This more paternalistic approach can actively undermine our relationships and has delivered patchy impact. Developing country partners have often complained to us that this approach compares poorly with China’s model, which they regard as less patronising.

In place of an overreliance on expensive, large-scale and often low-impact programmes, we believe there is an alternative approach which can be realised within the 0.3% budget envelope, which can secure higher impact whilst also helping to forge more meaningful partnerships between the UK and other countries.

Alongside maintaining the best value elements of our global health, humanitarian and climate spending through strategic multilateral commitments (e.g. Global Fund, GAVI, OCHA and IDA financing), new approaches to UK bilateral spend are overdue. For a fraction of the cost of a typical traditional sector-focused service delivery programme costing tens of millions, FCDO can move towards developing a suite of smaller scale and more agile UK bilateral partnership-based programmes that deliver high impact at low cost.

THE HOW: listen, and think systems and politics 

We outline below four key strategies and that should underpin the FCDO’s approach to development policy. These closely align with, and provide a practical roadmap for, some of the ‘essential shifts’ that have been outlined by the Minister for International Development.[1] But we are not naïve about the scale of the challenge – pivoting FCDO’s development programmes in line with these approaches will be a significant undertaking, requiring real political commitment and openness to doing things differently.

Four key elements of the new approach should be:

(1)  Listening and shifting focus to the shared priority of economic growth

For the UK to establish mutually respectful partnerships, our development policy must reflect and align the top priorities in local partner countries. Genuinely listening to local views first will immediately enhance UK credibility and influence in the Global South. Our first question when considering both ODA spending and programme design should always be: where are the areas of genuine mutual interest?

This will require a significant shift towards prioritising economic growth and job creation as the main area of mutual UK and Global South interest. We know that a focus on economic growth in our development policy would not only increase UK influence but also align with our national self-interest: both the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have recognised that supporting growth around the world is “not just the right thing to do” but also “an essential part of how we unlock growth, jobs, trade, investment…here at home as well”.[2] We hear consistently that this drive for growth is a goal shared by our partners in the Global South. This can and should, therefore, form the basis of a new set of genuine partnerships.

So, prioritising a proportion of bilateral spend on programmes that are aligned to supporting developing countries meet their ambitions for growth is key. Yet worryingly on some measures the FCDO has reduced the proportion of aid targeted on economic growth (economic infrastructure and services spending fell from 13% of UK bilateral spend in 2021 to 4% in 2024).[3] This trend needs to be reversed.

(2)  Deepening expertise in politically informed system-level changes 

As the Minister for International Development has emphasised with her ‘essential shifts’, it is inevitable in a world of 0.3% that there is greater focus on system change. Compared to large scale service delivery programmes, this approach both costs less and can potentially lead to more lasting change.

One stark illustration of the need for a focus on system changes comes from the health sector. Health services in sub-Saharan Africa have been highly reliant on ODA. But as that falls away, it will now require a dramatic shift from aid directly funding services to instead supporting system change in two senses: first, improved health service provision through national government systems and second, there needs to be a sufficiently strong political base for prioritising and sustaining health sector spending at the country-level.

Achieving both these forms of system change is not easy. If the approach adopted is largely technical, it will fail. Reforming any national government system – from a health service to the provision of agricultural subsidies – is an inherently political challenge, as well as a technical challenge. And for any lasting system change to happen it needs to be embedded in local political processes with sufficient local motivation and a genuine interest to drive it forward.

There is a real opportunity to support partner governments to strengthen local systems: as Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has asserted, “USAID cuts present an overdue opportunity for countries to take greater responsibility for themselves”.[4] But to take this opportunity, the new generation of programming cannot rely on technical expertise alone; it will need to be highly politically informed.

(3)  New generation of politically-informed and locally-led programming

To establish the respectful partnerships that deliver system-level change FCDO needs to significantly expand a new generation of smaller scale, locally-led development programmes and approaches.

These approaches should be firmly aligned to local political demands; responsive and agile, scaling up or down in response to opportunities and challenges; and skilled at navigating the political realities of how change happens. As well as building deeper partnerships, this approach can achieve significant impact, because when local partners genuinely want the support being offered, it has a much greater chance of leading to meaningful change and delivering real value for money.

There is growing experience of making this type of programming work. Others, including the Overseas Development Institute, Professor Stefan Dercon, and several FCDO-country offices have captured important lessons from successful programmes. But fundamentally reorientating FCDO bilateral programming to routinely deliver this type of programme to a high quality will be hard. It needs to be put at the heart of the reorganisation and reform of the department.

(4) Protecting bilateral budgets to deliver these respect-based partnerships

Multilateral bodies are vital for upholding the international system, strengthening global health architecture, and delivering humanitarian assistance. Some, like GAVI and the Global Fund, provide excellent value for money and warrant continued UK backing. However, recent disproportionate cuts to UK bilateral assistance, driven by the disproportionate prioritisation of multilateral spending, have undermined the UK’s credibility as a partner and unduly limited the ability of FCDO to deliver the kinds of respect-based partnerships required in the new world.

Greater protection for bilateral budgets from the ongoing cuts is a key enabling tool, expanding FCDO’s ability to respond with flexibility and agility to emerging opportunities. Simultaneously, FCDO would be expanding avenues for UK soft power and reinforcing our global presence – crucial at a time of rising global contestation and emerging hostile threats.

Conclusion

Lower ODA spending does not have to mean lower impact or a diminished voice for the UK. Instead, we see a unique opportunity to rethink our global offer, in a way that is affordable in the current fiscal context. FCDO should build respectful partnerships that listen to local views and identify areas of mutual interest, deliver valued support through flexible and high impact locally-led approaches, and focus increasingly on economic growth.

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