Evidence submission to 
International Development Committee
Inquiry into the work of the Department for International Development (DfID) and the impact of UKaid
April 2020

1.	The Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation is a UK registered charity (no.1140911) that was founded as Find a Better Way in 2011 by football legend Sir Bobby Charlton. In 2019 the charity changed its name to celebrate the humanitarian ideals of its founder.

2.	Originally the charity focused on developing new technologies that would make the removal of landmines and explosive remnants of war quicker and safer; on mine risk education and on work to improve surgical techniques and prosthetics for those who had suffered explosive blast injuries and limb loss. 

3.	This work continues today and has delivered some impressive results. However, following a review in 2017 in consultation with beneficiaries & partners, and studying the impact of war on civilian populations, The Foundation now works more holistically on conflict recovery and takes an asset based approach to those it aims to support. 

4.	The Foundation added humanitarian and development projects to its programmes and now conducts a wider range of training for conflict affected communities. One of the key mechanisms for delivering these interventions is the network of conflict recovery centres that The Foundation is developing in war torn countries. While all conflicts have economic, social, environmental and cultural consequences for communities, each situation and community is unique and the conflict recovery centres are an asset that can be shaped to the particular needs and aspirations of people in each location.

5.	One Sir Bobby Charlton Rehabilitation Centre is already operational in Amman, Jordan and the second is currently under construction in Pursat, Cambodia.

6.	The Foundation works closely with other NGOs, academic institutions and think tanks. We support the All Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Threats and the REVIVE Campaign.

The current global context

7.	The following evidence is predicated on the fact that the current Coronavirus crisis will result in a very different world with possibly very different humanitarian priorities and a very different way of delivering humanitarian assistance. 

8.	For this evidence The Foundation has looked back at its experience since its creation in 2011 on the work of DfID, and further back from the many years of experience of the current chief executive Lou McGrath OBE.

9.	Lou McGrath is one of the founders of the Mines Advisory Group, he is one of the original architects of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and co-laureate of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

10.	In our recommendations The Foundation will attempt to use this experience to find solutions that will fit both a changed political climate and a dramatically changed humanitarian environment.

Executive Summary

11.	In the oral evidence session of this inquiry, the International Development Committee heard arguments for three options for the future of DfID:
a.	For the Department to continue in its current form;
b.	For its work to be taken over by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), or
c.	For DfID to return to its 1970 status as an agency of the FCO.

12.	Given that the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP is sacrosanct The Foundation believes the structure of the administration is secondary to the way that aid is first targeted and then delivered.

13.	The Government is considering the future structure of DfID, but in our evidence we will not be commenting on the structure of how UK aid is delivered. Instead we will focus on the second element of the Committee’s inquiry into the impact that UKaid actually makes on the ground and in The Foundation’s view, the office of The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), is of primary importance, and has been considered in the following deliberations.

14.	DfID aims to tackle the global challenges of our time including poverty and disease, mass migration, insecurity and conflict: building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for people in developing countries. In the following evidence The Foundation will examine this claim from its perspective as an ‘on the ground delivery agent.’ Our evidence is based primarily on DfIDs Global Mine Action Programme however we see no reason why it should not similarly apply to other programme areas.

15.	On a number of occasions we have invited DfID staff to visit our projects and to date none have accepted that offer – we have on the other hand, had UK parliamentarians, staff from the FCO and Ministry of Defence visit, and at some point in the future we would like to invite representatives from the ICAI.

Mine Action and Victim Assistance

16.	The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, of which the UK is a main signatory, places an obligation on each State Party to “provide assistance for the care and rehabilitation, and social and economic reintegration, of mine victims.” This entails:

a.	Data collection and information management to understand the extent of the challenge faced;
b.	Emergency and continuing medical care;
c.	Physical rehabilitation, including physiotherapy, prosthetics and assistive devices;
d.	Psychological support and social reintegration;
e.	Economic reintegration;
f.	The establishment, enforcement and implementation of relevant laws and public policies.

17.	The Foundation does not confine itself solely to the support of land-mine victims but to victims of conflict across the board, however the majority of those we help are victims of explosive weapons and the reverberating effects of those weapons – be they landmines, unexploded ordnance, improvised explosive devices or explosive weapons used in current conflicts.

18.	The UK’s obligation to the mine action programme is delivered by both DFID and the FCO, the former described in the oral evidence session as a delivery organisation, and the latter as the policy department, however in mine action both are responsible for policy and delivery. DfID delivers mine action aid through contracts and funding, predominantly given to large NGOs who provide technical delivery in impacted countries.

19.	The FCO operates in a similar way and contracts commercial organisations to deliver the UK’s commitment to clear landmines in the Falklands.

20.	From our experience working in countries such as Cambodia, Iraq and Jordan, FCO diplomatic staff members have often shown a real interest in development issues and are sometimes easier to engage with than the DfID staff.

DfIDs Policy on Victim Assistance 

21.	Despite the obligation to provide victim assistance under the Mine Ban Convention the Global Mine Action funding from DfID goes almost entirely towards clearance and some mine risk education work.

22.	When questioned, DfID policy staff state that victims of conflict are catered for under their global health strategy and yet The Foundation would argue that this is wholly inadequate.

23.	Conflict, and particularly blast, can cause a very complex suite of life changing injuries and disorders that put a massive burden on sometimes very fragile health and community care systems in post conflict nations.

24.	Victims, however, are not restricted to those physically impacted by the violence: In Jordan The Foundation is treating children who have been witness to the effect of the conflict in Syria. These children are severely traumatised and need very specific psychological care – their rehabilitation is a long term process and we don’t feel that DfID appreciates that this is a core feature of victim assistance.

25.	The Sir Bobby Charlton Rehabilitation Centres provide specialist support but can only contribute a tiny fraction of what is needed globally. 

Why is Victim Assistance Fundamental to Development?

26.	The Foundation believes that helping individual victims to rebuild their lives contributes to rebuilding communities. In turn this advances the restoration of stability and security which allows for development to occur.

27.	We also see victim assistance as ‘people focussed development’. Mine clearance is structural development – it frees up land for agriculture or infrastructure and will clear the route towards poverty reduction, but this can only work if the victims are also supported and ‘rebuilt’.

DfIDs Policy Towards Smaller NGOs

28.	Our experience of applying for DfID grant aid has been disappointing and frustrating.

29.	Time and again we have seen large sums of money go to the same large organisations. Yet despite being encouraged by DfID Ministers and staff to submit applications for funding under both direct aid and match funding schemes, these have ultimately been met with both a negative response and sometimes contradictory reasoning for that response.

30.	Our experience suggests that particularly in its mine action programme, the work of DfID is definitely skewed to support the larger NGOs at the expense of smaller often more ‘fleet of foot’ NGOs.

31.	While many large NGOs use ‘expat’ staff with consequently high staff costs, The Foundation works with local partners thereby minimising expenditure and maximising capacity building at the community level.  We hear DfID speaking about the need for Value For Money – but do not see this implemented. In effect, we feel penalised for not behaving in the same ‘corporate’ fashion of the larger NGOs. 

32.	Our experience of applying for UK Aid funding, is that each stage is probably 10 days of a lead persons time, 5 days of a partner's time and 2 days of other managers time to review and produce financial information. So, as a rough estimate the cost is around £10,000 to have any chance of ‘winning’ a grant. This is equivalent to the cost of a locally employed outreach worker to visit 5-10 families a day for a year.

33.	Unlike many International NGOs, and indeed DfID itself, The Foundation focusses almost entirely on building capacity at the local level with local partner NGOs. We ensure local staff are appropriately and adequately trained so that delivery to local people comes from local people. We are disappointed that DfID does not seem to value (in its evaluation criteria) this as a legitimate approach to recognise that this is at the heart of sustainable international development.

34.	In essence:
a.	The contracting out by DfID of the management of competitive funding programmes creates a lack of accountability, it adds to the feeling of dealing with faceless bureaucrats and potentially impacts on the quality of the projects selected (we see it as a paper exercise not based on reality);
b.	The odds of actually securing a UK Aid Direct or UK Aid Match grant are miniscule and get longer each year. For most organisations it is a terrible waste of time and money with precious resources taken away from service delivery. By our calculation In July 2019 of 895 applications received for UK Aid Direct only 1.2% were successful;
c.	It appears the same organisations win UK aid contacts year after year. This suggests a lack of willingness to take a risk;
d.	There appears to be a distinct lack of practical development expertise in DfID and its sub-contractors who manage the grant processes;
e.	There is no sense of working together with DfID to deliver the best possible project for target communities - lack of partnership working;
f.	No allocation for victim assistance in the mine action programme results in a lack of joined up thinking;
g.	Staff and ministers in DFID move on regularly and this means any knowledge or understanding of the sector gained is lost;
h.	The Coronavirus crisis has highlighted a total lack of disaster preparedness by DfID and the humanitarian sector as a whole;
i.	The whole package of DfID funding lacks transparency;
j.	After 23 years it is unclear what DfID has actually achieved in relation to sustainable development;
k.	DfID appears adverse to funding and capacity building community based organisations and therefore much of the work it funds is unsustainable;
l.	It is not always apparent that DfID recognises that development is ultimately about people.

35.	Our concerns are not new and have been expressed by others. In April 2014 Lawrence Haddad of The Guardian wrote: 

“UK development assistance needs a better balance of accountability and flexibility. No one has said to me in the past couple of years: "DfID is getting easier to work with." The transactions costs are mind numbing and resource consuming. They have been put in place to demonstrate value for money. We all want value for money – I'm a UK taxpayer too – but when, by the very nature of the work, it is easier to track the money than the value, the focus will be too much on the former and not enough on the latter. This can lead to strange investments, where cost control is wonderful but value is not interrogated.

“The other side of this is that only really large partners can afford to engage with DfID. This is a problem, because creative ideas – needed more than ever in the world of collective action, fragile contexts and persistent poverty in middle-income countries – often come from smaller groups and organisations. DfID's appointment of a head of procurement in response to the recent Independent Commission for Aid Impact review is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.”

36.	The ICAI report he refers to is also a document we have studied. We see the role of the ICAI as vital, but what has actually changed in DfID since its inception? The creation of the ICAI was to ensure that aid went to the most needy and made the biggest impact – but in reality we are disappointed to have seen little change in DfIDs behavior and practices. 

Key recommendations from the Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation for the future delivery of UKaid and measurement of its impact

37.	As stated already, The Foundation firmly believes that aid should be primarily people focussed – and if we learn anything from the Coronavirus crisis it must be that countries, communities and individuals have to work more collaboratively.

38.	Civil servants are particularly risk averse – we would like to see UKaid delivered by people prepared to challenge the orthodoxy and think creatively, people who stay long enough in their roles to build up a real expertise and understanding of the issues;
39.	Rather than Value for Money being the measure of success we would like to see Value of Outcome as the prime measurement;
40.	The 0.7% of GDP spend figure should remain or increase and funding allocated to projects that directly meet the needs of the people in recipient countries;
41.	Funding considerations should prioritise collaborative projects that build capacity at the local level, allowing countries to take ownership of the solution and ultimately decrease their reliance on aid;
42.	UK aid needs to be closely aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals, taking an holistic account of the reverberating impact of issues and not just focus on any one particular problem;
43.	More consideration should be given to how small NGOs such as the Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation can deliver on ground developmental objectives such as victim assistance projects that meet poverty reduction, economic development and the security and stabilization agenda, with a dedicated funding stream for small NGOs and coalitions that is both easier to navigate and less of a lottery.
44.	The end goal for UK aid should be to help countries reduce and cease their reliance on UK aid.