IDC inquiry: Future of UK aid & Development Assistance

This inquiry was compiled by the Gender and Development Network’s (GADN) Gender and Humanitarian working group to support the IDC Inquiry on 'future of UK aid and development assistance', with a specific gendered lens to humanitarian action. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent the views of all the members of the working group and the wider network.

How should the Government be prioritising UK Official Development Assistance in the coming years?

● Make gender justice an explicit ODA objective, resourcing both standalone programming, as a core foundation for effective gender mainstreaming across humanitarian, development, peacebuilding and human rights “nexus” work. This approach, goes beyond box ticking gender mainstreaming and ensures that structural inequalities, like unequal access to resources, services, power and safety, are directly addressed rather than treated as a side issue. Resourcing both standalone programmes and mainstreaming across humanitarian, development, peacebuilding and human rights work makes responses more effective, prevents doing harm, and leads to more sustainable, inclusive outcomes for entire communities.

● Prioritise direct, long-term, flexible, core funding to diverse women’s rights and women-led organisations (WROs/WLOs) and increase contributions to Women’s Peace & Humanitarian Fund, and CBPFs and feminist funds like Equality Fund. Longstanding research proves that supporting diverse WROs/WLOs, who are often the first responders and understand local realities, drives lasting, gender-just peace, development and crisis response.

● Ringfence resources for the WPS National Action Plan. This will allow political commitments to translate into predictable, multi-year funding for implementation, preventing WPS from being deprioritised in budget decisions and enabling consistent delivery, monitoring and accountability.

● Align ODA priorities with legal and strategic commitments (0.7% target, Gender Equality Act 2014, WPS NAP, Paris Agreement), focusing on the most marginalised (gender, age, disability, sexuality, migration status). Recognising risks to ODA, this protects hard won commitments to gender-transformative peace and protection work, in ways that deliver value for money, generate cost savings (by preventing more costly crises and responses later), and increase efficiency through predictable, multi-year funding. This links to:

○ Investing in anticipatory action, resilience and social protection (including cash/voucher assistance), integrating health, nutrition, livelihoods and WASH for better outcomes and value; and

○ consistent delivery of gender- and age-transformative approaches across humanitarian crises, simultaneously through both standalone gender humanitarian programming and effective mainstreaming.

How does the UK’s delivery approach for a) development and b) humanitarian assistance need to adapt to the changing funding and values landscape?

● Continue to approach crises through a holistic lens, which supports coordination, preparedness, local leadership and ultimately better value for money. Recognise the role and leadership of women’s movements and organisations, which are not confined to sectoral silos, in achieving this approach by bringing together humanitarian, development, climate, human rights and peacebuilding.

● Move from short-term projects to multi-year, intersectional programming led or co-led by WROs/WLOs, with indicators that track power/funding shifts to those actors and reduction of admin/due diligence burdens. Standardise/simplify funding processes (templates, languages, reduced due diligence for small grants) and include flexible funds to pivot during crises.

● Require gender analyses for all responses; fund targeted programmes on women’s and girls’ leadership, protection/GBV and SRHR. Advocate for these analyses as key to programme quality and accurate assessment of risks, needs and opportunities.

● Ensure cross-government policy coherence and monitoring across the WPS NAP.

What needs to change to realise the goal of moving from paternalistic models and relationships to partnerships?

● Shift both decision-making and resources to local WROs/WLOs via direct funding relationships, funding consortia led/co-led by WROs/WLOs, and/or funding purpose-built flexible funders like feminist funds. Include WROs/WLOs in decision-making forums and coordination spaces, whether or not funding is included, as well as in design of funding mechanisms and calls. Avoid instrumentalising WROs/WLOs or treating them as sub-grantees within humanitarian architecture. Support leadership on their terms, including organisations led by girls, youth, disabled and LGBTQI+ women.

● In the design of funding calls, strategies and analyses, engage in co-creation with WROs/WLOs to ensure investments are mutually beneficial and not driven solely by donor priorities. Remove unnecessary visa/language/administrative barriers and accept shared due diligence processes like the IASC’s Harmonized Reporting (or 8+3) Template.

● Measure partnership quality (power-sharing, leadership opportunities, proportion of direct funding).

● Implement risk-sharing between FCDO and intermediaries to reduce compliance burdens on partners.

How should the Government be communicating the results of UK aid, and its importance, to the public / How can the UK Government align its development work with taxpayers’ expectations, and ensure value for money?

● Understand where public opinion really lies and how to effectively appeal to the UK general public. While it is tempting to assume that aid must be framed in terms of enhancement to UK interests, research shows that this does not win over voters, and that the British public actually responds to moral arguments around ‘doing our bit’ and why aid is ‘the right thing to do.’

● Inspire trust by making a well evidenced and persuasive case for UK aid. Do this by:

○ Reporting transparently on ODA with disaggregated data (sex, age, disability) and clear evidence of shifts in power/funding to local women-led actors

○ Highlighting impact stories that centre women’s leadership (first responders, movement-building) alongside cost-effectiveness (multi-sector, multi-year, cash assistance).

○ Publishing consistent follow-up and accountability on GBV/SRHR/WPS commitments, showing how commitments translate into implementation in multi-sector programmes such as health, livelihood, WASH.

○ Funding locally led delivery to reduce overheads, shorten response chains and increase relevance/sustainability.

Where is reform needed in multilateral agencies and development banks the UK is a member of, and funds?

Transforming the UK’s role and impact also means reshaping the multilateral system it funds, so that institutions like the IMF, World Bank and UN agencies can be advocates in driving gender justice, social protection and fiscal fairness. Reform is needed both in the economic policies they promote and in how they govern, resource and report on gender equality and women’s rights, and more equitable representation of Global South countries. Specifically, the UK should:

● Push for macroeconomic policies that protect social spending and public sector capacity in conversations with the IMF and the World Bank, including an end to the promotion of harmful conditionalities and austerity measures, recognising the disproportionate harm these inflict on women and girls.

● Champion fair international tax cooperation (UN Tax Convention progress; wealth/polluter/corporate/capital-gains taxes; fair allocation of taxing rights; domestic capacity).

● To break the viciou s debt cycles faced by Global South countries, which undermine women and girls' rights and actively accelerate the climate crisis, the UK must recognise the failure of the present colonial debt architecture and support the creation of a UN Debt Convention to agree rules on responsible lending and borrowing. It must also introduce domestic legislation to ensure that no creditor can hold out for a better deal than government creditors through a Common Framework debt restructuring. This should be in addition to the cancellation and restructuring of sovereign debt in ways that deliver reparative, reproductive and climate justice.

● Strengthen governance and accountability for gender results, with transparent, comparable reporting on WPL/GBV/SRHR financing and outcomes. This includes requiring multilaterals to track and increase direct funding to WROs/WLOs and embed gender- and age-transformative approaches across instruments (including CERF/CBPFs).

What is needed to achieve the Government’s objective of transforming its role from donor to investor?

To genuinely “transform” from donor to investor, the Government first needs to redefine what it is investing for, for example, moving from a narrow focus on financial returns to a broader model that values social, gender, peace and the leadership of organisations it is investing in. This means reshaping tools, incentives and leadership so that every investment decision is judged on its contribution to a rights-based approach that:

● Create gender-transformative, flexible instruments (including outcomes funds) that channel capital directly to local organisations and social protection systems.

● Build a pipeline of locally led, multi-year programmes with clear impact metrics, robust risk-sharing, and safeguards against market-only approaches that sideline rights.

● Appoint senior ministerial leadership to drive gender justice, and WPS commitments, across government, ensuring policy coherence and investor-style portfolio management with transparent performance data.