Institute of Development Studies

IDS at the Party Conferences 2009

2 October 2009

This autumn IDS held fringe events at the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative party conferences. All three examined the same question: how to evaluate international development?

The Liberal Democrat fringe event took place on 22 September, and featured Nick Perkins, IDS Head of Communications, speaking alongside Judith Radel of Development Initiatives, Karin Christensen of 'Publish What You Fund', Oliver Buston of ONE.org and Michael Moore MP, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on international development. The panel all gave their views on the future of aid spending and development more broadly, Michael Moore MP referring to the Liberal Democrat's current work to update their development policy (a process which will include the participation of Lawrence Haddad, IDS director).

The Labour party conference fringe event was a week later on Wednesday 30 September, in Brighton's Metropole Hotel. On this occasion Professor Lawrence Haddad, Director of IDS, spoke alongside David Borrow MP. David Borrow is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on AIDS, and on Debt, Aid and Trade. This second group co-hosts IDS’ series of debates at Westminster entitled 'Dangerous Ideas In Development'.

Lawrence Haddad presented on IDS' recent efforts to better understand evaluation of development, and drew on the recent In Focus Policy Briefing entitled 'Making the Case for Aid: The Challenge of UK Public Perceptions'. This covers work recently carried out with the Wellcome Trust and the University of Sussex Mass Observation Archive to survey and understand what UK taxpayers think about development and international aid spending.

David Borrow MP talked about his work with the All-Party groups and also a charity in his constituency which works directly with poor people in Malawi, and reflected on the difficulty inherent in connecting taxpayers to the recipients of aid and of maintaining accountability in these global transactions. Both speakers reflected on the importance of aid in the current economic climate, and David Borrow re-emphasised Gordon Brown's commitment to enshrine the 0.7% GDP aid target in law.

The event at the Conservative party conference followed. Professor Haddad spoke along similar lines as previously and was joined by Mark Lancaster MP, the MP for Milton Keynes North East and Shadow Minister for International Development. Lancaster discussed the recent Conservative Green Paper on development entitled 'One World Conservatism: A Conservative Agenda for International Development'. This contains much that is related to the topic of evaluation, including plans to strengthen independent evaluation of aid spending; and to connect UK taxpayers to recipient countries by allowing members of the public to vote amongst contenders for a given amount of aid money, in a proposal known as 'My Aid'.

Overall it was encouraging to see, as we approach a general election, that all the three main UK political parties maintain support for an independent development ministry and to spending 0.7% of GDP on international development, especially given the uncertain economic climate.