M&C Saatchi World Services: Evidence Submission to the International Development Committee

Executive Summary: The UK faces a global credibility challenge: it must achieve more impact with fewer resources in an increasingly fragmented information environment. Public support for development spending is fragile; only around 18% of Britons believe that UK aid is effective or very effective, according to polling by the Development Engagement Lab (June 2025). Yet global crises – conflict, climate shocks, disinformation, migration – demand a trusted and effective UK voice abroad.

Communications is not an adjunct to development – it is a strategic enabler of legitimacy, impact, and accountability. It builds trust between governments and citizens, turns programmes into movements, and connects the intent of UK policy with the lived realities of people on the ground.

M&C Saatchi World Services (MCSWS) draws on 15 years’ experience delivering communications across over 40 countries in fragile, conflict and climate-affected contexts. We help governments, multilaterals, and NGOs use communications to solve complex global challenges through behavioural insight, data-led strategy, and creative innovation.

This submission sets out practical recommendations for how the UK can embed communications as a strategic capability across its development system – ensuring that every pound of ODA not only delivers results, but also earns understanding, legitimacy, and trust.

Prioritising UK ODA: Protecting Impact and Legitimacy (Answers IDC Q1: How should the Government be prioritising UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the coming years?)

In a constrained fiscal environment, ODA should focus where it delivers the greatest multiplier effect – preserving essential humanitarian outcomes while investing in systems that sustain long-term impact and legitimacy.

• Protect core humanitarian functions in fragile and conflict-affected states (health, education, social protection) while pairing them with communications that strengthen citizen trust and participation.
• Invest in “information resilience” – ensuring communities have access to accurate, trusted information that underpins social cohesion and local accountability.
• Leverage UK expertise – using communications, behavioural science, and creative industries to attract private and multilateral investment and extend reach.

Recommendation: Allocate a defined percentage of ODA to communications and influence activities that reinforce legitimacy and public trust alongside delivery outcomes.

Flexibility and Localisation: Putting Local Voices at the Centre (Answers IDC Q2: How can the UK’s approach be flexible to what partners need most? and Q8: How should ODA be deployed to empower local delivery and decision-making?)

Development succeeds when those closest to the challenge have agency in defining and delivering the solution. Communications enables this localisation shift – it is how governments listen before they speak.

The UK can lead by devolving both decision-making and narrative power:

• Create devolved funding windows for local communications actors – community media, NGOs, and civil society – to design and deliver context-relevant campaigns.
• Simplify compliance for local partners, focusing on verifiable outcomes and proportional risk management.
• Pair UK technical expertise with local insight, building two-way learning that strengthens legitimacy and ownership.

Recommendation: Establish a Local Communications Capacity Fund within FCDO’s ODA portfolio to support local media and storytelling ecosystems that enhance trust in institutions.

Delivery in a Changing Landscape: From Service Delivery to System Support (Answers IDC Q3: How should delivery for development and humanitarian assistance adapt to the changing funding/values landscape? and Q10: How can the UK contribute to coordinating relief and development efforts?)

The global development context is shifting from service delivery to systems support. Communications is the connective tissue that allows systems to function – linking institutions, communities, and markets through shared understanding and accountability.

MCSWS experience shows that embedding communications from programme inception – not as an output – improves efficiency, participation, and sustainability. Effective communication strategies also enable coordination across humanitarian and development portfolios, helping different actors work towards shared goals.

Recommendation: Require all ODA programmes above a defined threshold to include a communications component within design and MEL frameworks, with indicators on trust, participation, and coordination.

From Grants to Expertise: Leveraging UK Strengths (Answers IDC Q9: What to consider in moving from “grants to expertise”? and Q14: How can the UK encourage private investment and ensure accountability?)

The UK’s creative industries – which are world-leading in behavioural insight, data analytics, and media innovation – are an underused development asset. Moving “from grants to expertise” means deploying these strengths systematically as part of the UK’s development brand.

• Create structured pathways for UK specialists in communications and behavioural science to co-design solutions with partner institutions.
• Integrate communications into technical cooperation frameworks, ensuring reforms are both understood and trusted.
• Champion partnerships combining British expertise with local delivery capability.

Recommendation: Establish a Communications and Influence Fellowship Scheme under the UK International Development portfolio, pairing UK creative experts with local partners to strengthen institutional communication capacity.

Aligning Development with UK Interests and Global Leadership (Answers IDC Q5: Where can aid philosophy complement UK economic growth and national security? and Q7: What needs to change to move from paternalistic models to partnerships?)

Strategic communications is central to the UK’s identity as a credible, values-driven development partner. It aligns aid with UK interests in stability, climate, and prosperity, without diluting humanitarian purpose.

• Use communications to articulate how aid advances shared national and global interests – peace, resilience, trade, and security.
• Position “Global Britain” as a source of knowledge, creativity, and partnership, not simply funding.
• Strengthen coherence between diplomacy, development, and domestic messaging to project consistency and credibility.

Recommendation: Treat communications as a dimension of soft power, which is integral to the UK’s influence, legitimacy, and competitive advantage in international development.

Communicating Results of UK Aid and Its Importance to the Public (Answers IDC Q11: How should the Government communicate results of UK aid and its importance to the public? What’s needed to facilitate this?)

Public legitimacy underpins sustainable aid policy. Yet UK development communications often remain technical, institution-centred, and disconnected from public sentiment.

The Government should recast aid as an investment in stability and shared prosperity, combining moral leadership with national interest. Citizens engage more when stories connect compassion with practical benefits.

• Moral leadership: saving lives, empowering communities, advancing rights.
• Mutual benefit: preventing pandemics, stabilising economies, supporting trade and security.
• Modern storytelling: moving beyond press releases to data-driven, emotionally resonant content through partnerships with independent creators, digital storytellers, and social innovators.

Recommendation: Establish a cross-government communications unit for international development, responsible for insight-led campaigns that make UK aid results visible and meaningful to domestic audiences.

Accountability, Value for Money, and System Reform (Answers IDC Q12: How can Government ensure value for money and embed accountability? and Q13: Where is reform needed in multilaterals and development banks the UK funds?)

Every pound of ODA must demonstrate measurable impact but conventional metrics often miss the perception and behaviour dimensions that determine whether outcomes endure.

MCSWS uses real-time analytics and sentiment tracking to measure communication effectiveness, including what people understand, believe, and do as a result of interventions. Applying such methods system-wide could strengthen transparency and learning.

• Develop a Communication Effectiveness Framework to assess reach, resonance, and behavioural change.
• Embed comms metrics within FCDO and multilateral evaluation systems.
• Ensure openness and comparability through shared performance indicators and public reporting.

Recommendation: Integrate communication metrics into ODA performance reviews, ensuring influence and understanding are treated as measurable outcomes of aid effectiveness.

Summary Recommendations

1. Treat communications as a strategic capability, central to effective, legitimate, and sustainable development.
2. Allocate a defined percentage of ODA to communications, influence, and information resilience.
3. Establish a Communications and Influence Fellowship Scheme to mobilise UK expertise.
4. Create a Local Communications Capacity Fund to support partner-country media ecosystems.
5. Set up a cross-government communications unit for development storytelling and public engagement.
6. Embed a Communication Effectiveness Framework within FCDO and multilateral MEL systems to ensure value for money and continuous learning.

About M&C Saatchi World Services: M&C Saatchi World Services (MCSWS) is an issues-focused communications agency helping governments, multilaterals, and NGOs solve complex global challenges through behavioural insight, data-led strategy, and creative innovation. Operating in over 40 countries, MCSWS delivers programmes across health, governance, climate, and resilience – bridging policy intent and citizen experience to create lasting impact. Due to the sensitive nature of our clients and work, we are unable to provide detailed case studies in this forum.