1 Introduction
1. The Department for International Development (DFID)'s
Annual Report 2007 was published on 15 May 2007 and sets out DFID's
activities and achievements in the year from April 2006 to March
2007. As in previous years, we held a short inquiry into the Annual
Report. This gave us the opportunity to assess major developments
in the Department's work, to explore particular areas in depth
and to assess whether the Annual Report provides an accurate reflection
of the Department's performance.
2. In the course of the inquiry, we received written
submissions from 18 organisations and individuals. DFID responded
to a series of detailed written questions which we sent to them.[1]
We took oral evidence from DFID officials on 17 July 2007. These
were: Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Permanent Secretary; Mark Lowcock,
Director General, Policy and International; Sue Owen, Director
General, Corporate Performance; and Nemat Shafik, Director General,
Regional Programmes. We are grateful to all those who contributed
to our inquiry.
3. This report has two main focuses. First, we set
out our assessment of DFID's performance over the twelve months
covered by the Annual Report 2007 and indicate our areas of concern
as well as highlighting where we think the Department is doing
well. We also comment on the implications for DFID of the Comprehensive
Spending Review settlement for 2008-11 announced on 9 October.[2]
Secondly, we discuss a number of specific topics which we decided
are sufficiently important amongst DFID's activities to merit
particular attention. These are: gender; climate change; governance;
and policy coherence for development.
4. We would like to place on record at the outset
our appreciation of DFID's achievement in producing a very detailed
Report which contains features missing from most other departments'
Annual Reports. In particular, we welcome the following:
- this year's Report includes
a set of tables on the financial values of aid given to each country
and region, extended this year to subsume the reporting requirements
of the International Development (Reporting and Transparency)
Act 2006.[3] These are
in addition to the Treasury-required 'core tables'.[4]
- the core tables themselves
break down budget expenditures according to the Department's main
aims and target areas.[5]
The Treasury encourages all Departments to follow this practice,
but not all do.
- the Report contains a dual
assessment against Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets, showing
not just the currently assessed position but also the Department's
forecast for whether the target will be met by the end of the
relevant Spending Review period.[6]
- the Report includes a commentary,
in one place, identifying and discussing progress on PSA targets
which are 'off-track' or have slipped since the preceding Autumn
Performance Report.[7]
We will indicate later in this Report the specific
areas where we believe the provision of information can be improved.
1 Ev 19-65 Back
2
Meeting the Aspirations of the British People, 2007 Pre-Budget
Report and Comprehensive Spending Review, HM Government, October
2007, Cm 7227 Back
3
DFID Annual Report 2007, Annex 1 Back
4
DFID Annual Report 2007, Annex 2 Back
5
DFID Annual Report 2007, Annex 2 Back
6
DFID Annual Report 2007, p 285 Back
7
DFID Annual Report 2007, Annex 5 Back
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