Institute of Development Studies

Members of Parliament back 0.7 per cent target for UK Aid

23 March 2010

A report published today by the International Development Select Committee argues that the UK's commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income as Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2013 must be met whichever party wins the General Election and whether or not legislation is taken forward to enshrine the target in law. IDS' Director, Lawrence Haddad gave evidence for the report.

The report examines the draft International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill, published by the Government in January. If enacted, the Bill would make it a legislative requirement for the UK Government to allocate 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) to aid expenditure from 2013 and in each subsequent year.

The UK made the commitment to meet this longstanding UN target in 2004, ahead of the EU, marking it out as a leader in international development. The report argues that the UK must maintain and build on this reputation by ensuring it reaches 0.7 per cent by 2013.

During his evidence session evidence Lawrence Haddad questioned whether DFID had the capacity to administer more aid sensibly to secure the 0.7 per cent target by 2013. In particular given the increasingly fragile contexts that they work in and their reduced numbers of staff. This year the UK will provide 0.56 per cent of income as ODA. Professor Haddad questioned whether it would be possible to increase this by 0.27 percentage points in the next five years given that it took 11 years to increase it by 0.17 per cent.

The report concludes that the measures in the draft Bill aimed at holding the Government to account on the 0.7 per cent target were too weak. In particular, the Bill allows the Government to cite ‘economic, fiscal or external circumstances' as possible reasons for not meeting the target. The Committee believes that the Bill should not try to pre-empt or legitimise failure by including a list of acceptable reasons for missing the target.

When giving evidence Professor Haddad argued that it was important that, as aid levels increased to meet the 0.7 per cent target in 2013, proper measures were in place to ensure aid quality did not suffer. He further stressed the need for DFID to strengthen its communications with the British people about the benefits of aid.

Malcolm Bruce MP, the chair of the International Development Select Committee reflected this in his own comments about the new report, ‘Maintaining public support for aid is vital, especially during periods of economic downturn, when there are many pressures to reduce public expenditure.'

Image: Mark Henley/ Panos