Speech

4 November 2008

Challenges and opportunities for UK civil society

Speech by DFID Permanent Secretary Minouche Shafik at the BOND Annual General Meeting, RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), London, 4 November 2008

Permenant Secretary, Minouche ShafikWe live in changing times. Political change. Economic change. Change in the global balance of power and wealth.

A changing context for development. Which means change for us – the British Government and British civil society – who share the belief that unacceptable levels of poverty still exist across the world. And that something must be done about it.

Change brings immense opportunities and challenge. To which we must respond, proactively and intelligently. It is a time for leadership. Not a time for ‘business as usual’.

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Opportunities

We have some extraordinary opportunities.

The British development community – civil society and government – has become a world leader on international development. There is so much experience, knowledge and skill built up within the sector.

And there’s so much we can do with that.

For example, many of us put enormous effort into making the United Nations MDG event such a success in September.

Many of you were in New York. The event assembled the broadest ever coalition to call for progress towards the MDGs and put plans in place for action. On top of the anticipated and valuable contribution of NGOs and donors, we saw faiths and inter-faith groups, diaspora, BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) groups and business all playing striking roles.

So there’s the opportunity of this year’s call to do more. Now look at how far the world has moved to agree how development should be delivered. Just eight weeks ago, we saw the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra.

Building on UK leadership in Paris five years ago, British government and civil society were instrumental in Accra, driving a step change in aid effectiveness. New commitments that would have seemed impossible a few years ago. For example…

  • All donors delivering aid through partner governments as their first choice.
  • New standards for transparency of donor performance. That’s why we’ve led the International Aid Transparency Initiative… now 14 donors involved, further improving access to how we spend money.
  • Division of labour between donors at the level of individual countries. Reducing the burden on developing countries of managing aid.
  • New policy commitments for donors working in fragile countries which should significantly strengthen aid delivery. Such as greater use of pooled funding mechanisms to support stabilisation and peace building.

And the British aid budget continues to grow fast. Last year's Comprehensive Spending Review settlement put us on a course of increasing aid by an average of 11% a year. Helping take UK Overseas Development Assistance to over £9 billion a year by 2011. In line with the EU commitment for 2011 and faster than straight line growth to 0.7% in 2013. And it meets the UK’s share of the extra $50 billion of aid by 2010 pledged at Gleneagles.

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Challenges

Now on to some of the extraordinary challenges.

The global economic crisis has so many ramifications.

Most importantly, its direct effect on poverty. The poorest people in the poorest countries are hardest hit by the crisis.

And also the potential impact on aid budgets as donor countries tighten their belts. I'ts especially important that we follow up now on the UN MDG event – and sustain the ‘Call to Action’. The British Government will stand by our commitments for this Comprehensive Spending Review period – up until 2011.

And its potential impact on public support for development. With constrained public spending and the possibility of recession, we can all expect more questions. Some people will simply ask why we’re spending their money in other countries. But many more will ask what British aid is achieving. Where are the results?

What does that mean for DFID and civil society?

First, it means we’re going to need really solid arguments to justify our aid budget when it comes to the next spending round. We’ll need to show results. We’ll need to demonstrate value-for-money. And so will our partners.

Second, it means we need to get better at communicating with the British public. What we do – and what we achieve. Your donations depend on that. So does political support for the development agenda in the longer term. You might be interested in looking at DFID’s new communications policy, which we’ve based on solid audience research.

The final challenge I’ll mention is the growing significance of new donors - powerful nations such as China and others - and large philanthropic foundations. These are new donors who are not part of the old ‘family’. Who may not know the family ‘rules’ - or even want them. We have a lot to learn about them - and from them - just as they have much to learn from us.

On the whole, it’s a good thing that more people are interested in development and bringing more resources to the table. So long as they don’t take up too much of developing country governments’ time - which is where Accra comes in again.

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Relationship between DFID and British NGOs

So there’s a complex web of globally interconnected opportunity and challenge. What does this mean for the relationship between DFID and British NGOs?

I spoke earlier of the need for a proactive, intelligent response. Lets look at three broad areas.

First, working together to improve British development policy. And I mean our government policies - and your policies. Policies that will justify and support our collective leadership on development.

This can take various forms. For example, who today can claim full understanding of policy areas which cut right across countries, regions, sectors and themes? With a myriad of well-argued but different positions?

It’s by coming together around policy problems that we broaden our reach into knowledge, ideas and experience. Build a more comprehensive, collective understanding. And build a better chance of a good policy decision. It is through networks and policy forums that we can join up more of the dots and make greater sense of complexity.

And we can sometimes gain most when working with the ‘non likeminded’ - when differences in ideology or approach may have made earlier collaboration uncomfortable. But we can gain more sometimes because those who move in different circles to ourselves are the ones most likely to bring new knowledge to the table. And it is that broader knowledge that benefits our policies.

I know we do this - sometimes. But are we systematic enough? Are we getting the right groups together? Are we able to move beyond "I’m right and you’re wrong" to a discussion that will help all our policy positions improve?

Another way we work together to improve British development policy is through engagement in advocacy and campaigning. British civil society playing your vital role in challenging our government positions and actions. It helps keep policy fresh. It encourages us to test and re-test the evidence. It can stimulate innovation and further policy development.

But I’d also ask you to think about whether your advocacy and campaign efforts are always intelligently targeted? For example, we’ve been campaigned on some issues that we all agreed upon years ago. That’s a waste.

And I’d ask you to think about whether your advocacy and campaign efforts are making a difference. What are you measuring? What is ‘success’? Can your constituents hold you to account?

And finally, I’d ask you to think about whether your advocacy and campaign efforts are sufficiently attuned to the impact of mass media - which as we know can be positive or negative. The kind of loose "Aid is Wasted" headline we see from time to time does nothing but damage public support for development.

So we do welcome civil society’s challenge. But that shouldn’t be a one-way street! I believe that we should also challenge civil society.

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Aid effectiveness

Let's take a topical example - aid effectiveness. Donors have committed to new mechanisms for transparent assessment of our performance. To coherent division of labour at country level, reducing the burden on partner countries. To working through partner government systems whenever possible.

These are all areas on which NGOs pushed. But where is the NGO response? What are you going to change? Expect to be challenged soon!

Second, working together to improve international development policy and behaviour. In this interconnected world, one voice can only carry so far. It is when many join together that many others listen. And things change. Look at Make Poverty History. Accra. The MDG meeting in September.

In the field of international development, the British government and British civil society agree on so much!

Put half a dozen DFID and NGO policy staff into the same room for an hour… Chances are they’ll agree on nine issues out of 10. Then they’ll leave the room and continue debating the one area of disagreement. That’s healthy and legitimate. But we’re not doing enough with the nine areas of agreement. Too often, they’re left on the table.

But I think that’s changing. Our relationship is maturing. Indeed, we must get better at leading together.

An example. Some of you are members of the UK Aid Network. I know how important your work was to the success in Accra. By the time we reached Accra, we’d come to agreement on the major issues. So DFID and civil society pushed together. We got a good result.

Third, working together to improve public support for development. I’ve mentioned this already. We face an economic downturn. And political uncertainty. Keeping development high on the political agenda means keeping it high on the public’s agenda. So it's critical for all of us that we explain what we do more clearly. And demonstrate the difference we make.

Every organisation represented in this room has contact with many supporters and potential supporters of development. Every organisation in this room has great stories which illustrate what development is about. Every organisation in this room has skilled communications teams. But we’re not doing enough with all of that yet. There’s a lot more work to do.

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Closing words

DFID’s relationships with BOND and member NGOs are strong. We value them immensely.

We don’t always agree – and nor should we always agree. As I said above, there is value in mutual challenge as well as consensus.

But the scale of opportunity and challenge facing us today leaves no room for complacency. It leaves no space for ‘business as usual’.

No. It’s a time for British government and British civil society to demonstrate proactive, intelligent leadership of the global development agenda.

Thank you.

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