Foreword - DFID Digital Strategy 2012-2015

By the Rt Hon Justine Greening MP, Secretary of State for International Development

I am delighted to launch DFID’s first digital strategy. We explain how our Department is using digital channels in international development and we set out our aspirations for incorporating digital into our policy making and aid programmes to help lift the world’s poorest people out of poverty.

Digital offers our staff and our development partners around the world a new and more efficient way of getting instant feedback on how our projects are working on the ground. Digital enables us to publish results online for others to see, share and learn lessons. Digital also has huge potential for reducing transaction costs, for delivering results more quickly and for exposing fraud and corruption.

For many citizens in the countries where we work, particularly in parts of Africa, using mobile phones is the norm, particularly for online banking. In fact, we find that some countries are leapfrogging the UK in their innovative use of technologies to transform people’s lives. We must learn from their experiences. Great progress has been made using mobile to deliver better services to more people, changing lives for the better. In our strategy, we highlight examples of where we can build in digital to our programmes in health, agriculture, and education.

At DFID, we can also make better use of digital communication, such as social media, to explain to the UK public how we are spending the overseas aid budget carefully and achieving results in areas such as improving women’s lives, getting children into school and vaccinating babies against preventable diseases.

Citizens expect to engage with each other and with their governments online. Digital is not optional any more.  We must offer the people, organisations and businesses who interact with us online the best possible experience – one that is simple, clear and fast. We must also embed the Civil Service Reform Plan in the way we work to develop the skills and capabilities in our staff to take up the opportunities offered by digital.

Now is the moment when we can really grasp the opportunities that mobile and internet technology offers to change the ways that citizens and governments interact, to generate economic opportunities, and to transform service delivery.