23 August 2011
In May 2010, the International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, commissioned root and branch reviews of how and where UK aid is spent to ensure that we make the greatest impact with every pound we spend.
The Bilateral Aid Review identified the countries and programmes where our aid was most needed and would have the greatest effect by changing the lives of the world's poorest people. It led to us reducing the number of countries we work in from 43 to 27 countries, in which we will concentrate our resources.
The Multilateral Aid Review looked at all of the global development agencies we work with - including the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank - and evaluated their impact and value for money. As a result, we have stopped funding to the least effective agencies, demanded improvement from others, and put more money into the best performing organisations - including UNICEF, the GAVI Alliance for vaccinations and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
The independent Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, led by Lord Ashdown, looked at how we can build on our strenghts in responding to humanitarian needs and ensure that we are better prepared for future disaster responses.
Together, the outcomes of the reviews mean a new approach - set out in the 2011 publication UK aid: Changing lives, delivering results - where aid is directed to the best possible use, determined not by top down targets set in Whitehall, but by the results which are achievable on the ground.
DFID's Business Plan sets out our vision and priorities for the next four years up to 2015.
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) lie at the heart of DFID’s work.
The MDGs are eight specific goals to be met by 2015 that aim to combat extreme poverty across the world.
These goals were created at the UN Millennium Summit in New York in 2000: the largest gathering of world leaders in history.
The Millennium Declaration, adopted by the world leaders, promised to: "free all men, women, and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty."
The UN has created a site where you can track progress made against each goal: the MDG Monitor.
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A girl plays at a water pump in a village in Sindh, Pakistan. Picture: Russell Watkins / DFID