Multilateral organisations
Multilateral organisations have a critical role to play in helping developing
countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Three institutions – the
European Commission, the World Bank
and the United Nations – already account for around 30% of
global aid.
Multilateral agencies are usually established by intergovernmental agreement
and are independent of the interests of any single country member or recipient
government. Multilaterals have a strong comparative advantage in the fight
against poverty because of the global reach of their operations, unique
legitimacy, breadth and depth knowledge and expertise of staff.
Multilaterals set their own policies and have their own governance
arrangements. As a member of a multilateral, Her Majesty's Government (HMG) has
rights and duties which include participation at board meetings. These meetings
provide an opportunity for HMG to influence the design and implementation of
multilaterals’ policies and practices but only alongside all other members whose
priorities may differ.
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Institutional strategies
For many of the key multilateral organisations, DFID has developed individual
Institutional Strategies (IS's). IS’s set out how DFID aims to work in
partnership with each institution to deliver mutually agreed objectives, and
contain action plans to assess progress against our strategic objectives. They
are normally produced every 3-4 years in consultation with each institution
itself and a range of civil society and other contacts.
The purpose of the IS to set out a framework for DFID’s engagement with an
individual multilateral agency. This document
- Explains the agency's role within our overall vision of the
international system, taking into account its mandate and effectiveness.
- Identifies priority objectives for our partnership, which will
normally be linked to the agency’s own reform or change process.
- Explains and justifies a medium term strategy for financial support.
- Sets out a framework for assessing, on an annual and periodic basis,
progress towards the identified objectives, including improvements in
the agency's performance against its own and DFID's targets
- Outlines the management arrangements with the agency and any risks.
IS’s aim for a partnership approach, emphasising joint objective-setting and
mutual benefit. A key focus of IS’s will also be to strengthen their ability to
work in partnership with developing countries.
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NAO report on Engaging with Multilaterals
The National Audit Office 2005 report on
 Engaging
with Multilaterals
was commissioned as a management report for DFID rather than a published report
for Parliament. DFID found this a very helpful report that recognised the
complexity of the multilateral system. The report recognised that DFID has good
systems and assessments in place to ensure its support to multilaterals is
aligned with poverty reduction objectives. It also acknowledged that compared to
other benchmarked donors DFID has done most to analyse multilateral policies,
capacity, and performance and to inform its membership and funding decisions.
The report made some recommendations on how DFID can tighten its
relationships and the need for a statement of our policy on multilaterals. DFID
has already addressed some of these issues and is taking forward the main
recommendations in the context of the 2007
White Paper on International Development.
Last updated 17 September 2007
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