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Budget support is aid provided directly to a partner government's central exchequer, and aims to reduce poverty through helping to fund the poverty reduction strategy of the beneficiary country. DFID's use of budget support has risen to £461 million, representing nearly twenty per cent of bilateral expenditure. Budget support has been designed to improve aid effectiveness by reinforcing developing country policies and systems, and reducing transaction costs. Despite having provided budget support in some countries for many years, however, the Department has not established whether it is in practice cost-effective. DFID's main criterion for providing budget support is that benefits must outweigh the risks, a judgement which is assessed subjectively by country teams. DFID assesses weaknesses in financial systems but rarely estimates the associated risks of corruption or waste of UK funds. DFID's monitoring has basic weaknesses in specifying suitable indicators and tracking progress against objectives. Bodies such as Parliaments, State Audit Offices and civil society organisations can provide effective challenge to governments and ensure that the poor benefit from budget support funding. DFID has not historically paid sufficient attention to strengthening domestic accountability. DFID also has a responsibility to UK stakeholders to demonstrate that funds have been spent effectively.
Why is aid contested?. The aid industry defined. How the thinking about aid and international development has evolved. Development projects: rationale and critique. Hard-nosed development: reforms, adjustment, governance. Country-led approaches and donor coordination: can the aid industry let go?. Development's poor cousins: environment, gender, participation, rights. How does the industry knows what works and what doesn't. Challenges for the 21st century
The Committee's report reviews the Department for International Development's 2007 annual report (HCP 514, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780102945195), focusing on issues of efficiency and effectiveness. The Committee welcomes the increase in the DFID's budget under the Comprehensive Spending Review Settlement for 2008-11, in line with the target of 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to be allocated to Official Development Assistance by 2013. However, it notes the significant challenge for DFID in using this funding effectively when it is also required to reduce its administrative costs, and therefore staff numbers, at a time when its focus is shifting increasingly towards fragile states where providing assistance is resource-intensive. Concerns are raised that DFID continues to emphasise inputs rather than outcomes, although DFID's new Public Service Agreement Delivery Agreement and the plans to establish the Independent Advisory Committee on Development Impact should make it easier to identify whether DFID's expenditure is effective in reducing poverty in developing countries. Four areas for improvement in DFID's work are highlighted relating to gender equality, climate change, governance and agricultural development.
The Government recognises that aid spending has sometimes been controversial at home because people want to know that it is squarely in the UK's national interest. Recent crises have proved, though, why aid is so important for us as well as for the countries we assist. The 2015 Spending Review is therefore being used to fundamentally review how this budget is spent. Spending will be shaped according to four strategic objectives. The strategy sets out how, as a result of the new approach, we will: allocate 50% of all DFID's spending to fragile states and regions; increase aid spending for the Syrian crisis and the related region; end all traditional general budget support - so we can better target spending; use an expanded cross-government Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) to underpin our security objectives by supporting the international work of the National Security Council (NSC); create a £500 million ODA crisis reserve to allow still greater flexibility to respond to emerging crises such as the displacement of Syrian refugees; fund a new £1 billion commitment to global public health (the "Ross Fund") which will fund work to tackle the most dangerous infectious diseases, including malaria. The fund will also support work to fight diseases of epidemic potential, such as Ebola, neglected tropical diseases, and drug resistant infections; and use a new cross-government Prosperity Fund, led by the NSC, to drive forward our aim of promoting global prosperity.
Rapid and profound changes are taking place in international development. The past two decades have promoted the ideals of participation and partnership, yet key decisions affecting people's lives continue to be made without sufficient attention to the socio-political realities of the countries in which they live. Embedded working traditions, vested interests and institutional inertia mean that old habits and cultures persist among the development community. Planning continues as though it were free of unpredictable interactions among stakeholders. This book is about the need to recognise the complex, non-linear nature of development assistance and how bureaucratic procedures and power relations hinder poverty reduction in the new aid environment. The book begins with a conceptual and historical analysis of aid, exposing the challenges and opportunities facing aid professionals today. It argues for greater attention to accountability and the adoption of rights based approaches. In section two, practitioners, policy makers and researchers discuss the realities of power and relationships from their experiences across sixteen countries. Their accounts, from government, donors and civil society, expose the highly politicised and dynamic aid environment in which they work. Section three explores ways forward for aid agencies, challenging existing political, institutional and personal ways of working. Authors describe procedural innovations as strategic ways to leverage change. Breaking the barriers to ensure more inclusive aid will require visionary leadership and a courageous commitment to change. Crucially, the authors show how translating rhetoric into practice relies on changing the attitudes and behaviours of individual actors. Only then is the ambitious agenda of the Millennium Development Goals likely to be met. The result is an indispensable contribution to the understanding of how development assistance and poverty reduction can be most effectively delivered by the professionals and agencies involved.
The Politics of Evidence and Results in International Development critically examines the context and history of the current demands for results-oriented measurement and for evidence of value for money.This book will inspire development professionals and organizations to cultivate their political skills.
What is development -- How does development happen? -- Why are some countries rich and others poor? -- What can be done to accelerate development? -- The evolution of development aid -- Sustainable development -- Globalization and development -- The future of development.
Many of the poorest countries in the world are affected by insecurity and violence. Insecurity has human and economic impacts, both for affected countries and their neighbours. Many insecure countries also receive lower levels of aid per capita than stable countries. These are good reasons to provide assistance to insecure countries, but there are also difficulties and risks. This report examines how the Department for International Development (DFID) works in insecure environments, ranging from some of the world's most insecure countries where armed conflict is still present and stabilisation is required, to less insecure contexts where donors may have more scope to engage in long term development projects. It examines what DFID is achieving and how it designs and manages its programmes, including dealing with risks to its staff. Insecurity is defined by reference to the incidence of political violence and the level of threat to aid workers. The NAO's work included four country case studies, literature and documentation review, data analysis and surveys. Their findings covered DFID's increasing interest in insecure environments, on what its expenditure has achieved in insecure environments, the design and management of country programmes, managing staff resources and costs and value for money. There are seven recommendations.
In the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review the Coalition Government announced its decision to achieve the internationally agreed target of providing 0.7 percent of Gross National Income as ODA from 2013. This will involve spending an additional 2.5 billion pounds in 2013-14 to make the total DFID budget 11.3 billion pounds in that year. There will be a large increase in spending on fragile and conflict affected states and it will be difficult to ensure that every pound is well spent in such war-torn environments. When scrutinising DFID's accounts the MPs were also surprised to discover that the Pope's visit was paid for in part by money supposed to be for overseas development aid (ODA). The Committee expects a response from the Government as to what the £1.85 million, transferred to the Foreign Office for the papal visit, was spent on and an explanation as to how this was ODA compliant. The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced reductions in DFID's running costs to 2% of the total budget. If achieved, this would make DFID the most cost-efficient development organisation in the world.This is to be achieved by a large reduction in back office administration costs (which excludes front-line staff) of £34 million over the CSR period. The International Development Committee supports the proposals to make savings in back office staff, but the MPs are warning that Ministers must ensure that reduced administration budgets do not affect the ability to deliver aid programmes on the ground. While declining as a share of total costs, running costs will increase in real terms over the next four years because the total budget will rise so much.