House of Commons - Aid under Pressure - International Development Committee

Aid under Pressure - International Development Committee Contents

6 Public support for development

121. UK public support for development has traditionally been regarded as being strong.[212] 74% of respondents to DFID's latest Attitudinal Tracking Study claimed to be "concerned about poverty in developing countries."[213] However, there are indications that the economic downturn could be undermining the public's willingness to support Government aid expenditure. The Secretary of State told us that he was "worried" about how to maintain this during difficult economic times.[214]

122. His anxiety appears to be justified by the findings of the most recent survey of public opinion, which show "early evidence that global poverty is becoming less of a priority for the UK public with an increase in the proportion believing other problems are more important and that they have enough problems of their own."[215] In DFID's latest study public opinion was divided on Government spending on development: 32% of respondents thought that people in poor countries were not as deserving of UK tax money as people in the UK, while 41% disagreed and 24% were unsure.[216]

123. Falls in donations to charities provide further evidence that the recession is having a negative impact upon public support. The Charity Commission has reported that over half of charities have been affected by the downturn.[217] 19% of respondents to DFID's 2008 survey reported that they were making donations to charities which worked in developing countries; a reduction from 21% the previous year.[218] A further sign of decreasing public support is the drop in sales of fair trade goods: the number of people who say that they would be willing to pay more for ethical products has dropped by 12% over the last year and the percentage of respondents who would buy the best product regardless of its ethical credentials increased by the same amount.[219]

Measuring public support

124. If DFID is to take effective action to combat these trends it needs to be able to draw on reliable information which provides a meaningful insight into public opinion. It does not appear that the relevant information is being collected at present. Dr Hudson, of University College London, told us that the majority of surveys of public opinion which attempted to gauge people's views about development failed to measure attitudes properly. He doubted the usefulness of some of the questions included in DFID's surveys, in particular whether it was helpful to ask people if they were concerned about poverty in poor countries, as this was "not a good question to track true support."[220]

125. Dr Hudson argued that it was wrong to conclude that a high level of concern about poverty correlated to a high level of support for development assistance, as these are two separate issues.[221] He believed that it would be more useful for people to be asked to consider the priority which should be given to increased spending on development assistance compared to other policy areas, so as to ascertain its relative importance to them:

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This was likely to produce very different figures from those currently reported. He cited a British Election Study in which people had been asked to name the key issues that faced Britain. Only 10 of the 5,000 respondents mentioned anything that "looked like global poverty and development assistance […] in terms of salience, it does not seem to be particularly high."[223]

126. The actual level of public support is further confused because the term "development aid/assistance" is subject to different interpretations. People may think that it refers to humanitarian aid (responding to a natural disaster or emergency) or development assistance (supporting long-term growth and development).[224] Dr Hudson noted that: "Public opinion does not even see 'helping poor people' as 'development' because [people] conceive aid as short-term charity for humanitarian relief."[225] Cathy Pharoah, Professor of Charity Funding, Cass Business School, said that evidence from focus groups supported this view: "I do not think it is something the general public thinks about or is aware of."[226]

127. DFID's 2008 Survey showed that 42% of the public mistakenly believed that the UK Government's development work was focused on humanitarian relief.[227] Dr Hudson argued that, if people thought that development assistance was about responding to humanitarian disasters, that would artificially increase the level of support, remarking "who is going to say no?" to that."[228] He had raised some of these concerns with the head of DFID's Strategic Communication Division in late 2008 and, while she was "very open to have further conversations", these issues had yet to be followed up.[229] The Secretary of State told us that the question of the methodology used in DFID's surveys was not one that the Department had considered.[230]

128. If DFID is to build public support for development effectively it needs first to establish what people's attitudes are. This requires the collection of information that truly reflects public opinion. We do not believe that DFID's surveys, as they are currently designed, achieve this. They focus on whether people are concerned about poverty, rather than whether they would support increased funding for development, nor do they attempt to assess the relative importance people place on development compared to domestic policy areas such as health and education. We recommend that DFID examines how it assesses the level of public support for development and re-designs its surveys to address the weaknesses we have identified.

Strengthening public support

129. In December 2007 DFID launched its Communication Matters Strategy which outlined how it planned to increase public knowledge about the work of the Department. In April 2009 DFID announced a review of its work on building support for development in the UK. The aim of the review is to "reflect on the impact of this work to date and to inform future efforts" with the likelihood of an increase in DFID's budget for this work in the next year.[231] Four areas are being examined:

DFID's work through the education system;
How the Department engages with the media;
The Development Awareness Fund (which provides awards for development awareness activities on a challenge fund basis);
DFID's work with trade unions, diaspora, and faith and black and minority ethnic groups.

The studies are expected to report in June 2009.

CORRUPTION

130. One key public concern about development spending which was frequently raised with us during the inquiry related to the levels of corruption and waste in development spending. Regardless of the reality of the situation, there is a perception that a significant amount of the money given to developing counties is either misspent or misappropriated. Several contributors to our eConsultation raised this as an area of concern:

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Waste and corruption in development spending was also a key topic of discussion at our public meetings.

131. DFID's research confirms that this is an area of significant public anxiety. The figures from its 2009 public attitudes study showed that 53% of respondents thought that most financial aid to poor countries was wasted and 57% believed that it was pointless to donate money because of corruption within partner governments.[235] This was an increase from October 2008 when 47% of people considered that the majority of financial aid given to poor countries was wasted.[236]

132. NGOs agreed that DFID needed to address these concerns. Global Witness argued that:

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Kirsty Hughes, Head of Advocacy at Oxfam, believed that DFID should take steps to reassure the public that there are systems in place to prevent aid money being lost to corruption; this could be done without it being necessary for the public to understand "every last legal detail […] but they need to know it's there and they [need to] have confidence in the system"[238] Professor Pharaoh suggested that the Government should focus on providing the public with:

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133. DFID's research concluded that groups with high levels of concern about aid expenditure being wasted (men and those aged over 65) should receive targeted evidence and messaging about aid effectiveness.[240] However, DFID's current Communication Strategy focuses on targeting the segments of the population that it believes will be most receptive to its messages rather than the groups in which concern about corruption and waste is most prevalent.[241] The Strategy does say that "while our main focus is on the three priority groups ["interested mainstream", "family first sympathisers" and "active enthusiasts"], we are also working to develop communications that effectively target the remaining audience group."[242] However no detail is given about how the Department will go about achieving this.

134. The Secretary of State told us that DFID was "consciously seeking to broaden the range of outlets in which we communicate the message that development works." He cited recent press articles in the Daily Mirror and The Sun on DFID activities, as well as the Department's involvement in Comic Relief as examples of steps DFID had taken to reach beyond its normal target audiences.[243]

135. Corruption in the use of aid flows is clearly one of the main concerns the UK public has about development spending. DFID needs to address this issue head on if it is to succeed in allaying taxpayers' concerns. We are not convinced that its current approach is achieving this. We recommend that DFID's Communication Strategy be refocused and redesigned. The aim should be to create a more effective tool for persuading the sceptical sectors of society that their money is not being lost or misspent and that development assistance brings real benefits to the world's poorest people.

Promoting DFID's work

136. NGOs and academics raised wider points about how DFID frames its public message. Professor Pharoah said that there was a "boredom and tedium" with the use of statistics, and did not believe that they meant much to the general public: "If you tell them we spent £3 billion on this, what does it mean? They have nothing to measure it against. They do not understand the money stories; it sounds a lot to them, they have never had £3 billion." She believed that DFID's public relations objectives would be better served by providing "positive stories about the impact of aid and more stories about tangible ways in which lives have been affected."[244]

137. DFID accepts in its Communication Strategy that it needs to highlight the impact of its programmes rather than the amount of money it spends. It also advocates a greater focus on the people who benefit from DFID's work rather than the institutions through which programmes are delivered and that these messages should be expressed in plain language, not technical jargon.[245] We have commented in previous reports that DFID should focus more on the outcomes which it wishes to achieve rather than on the amount of funding it provides, when designing and evaluating its programmes.[246] This evidence suggests that this is not only a better way to formulate policy but also a more effective way to present DFID's activities to the public.

138. The Secretary of State identified a tension between pursuing policies which would have the maximum poverty reduction impact and those which would resonate most with the public. He recounted an exchange he had had with the Prime Minister after the launch of the International Health Partnership, a programme designed to strengthen national health systems, which received very little press coverage. The Prime Minister had queried whether:

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139. Whilst the policies which DFID pursues should always be those which will have the most impact on poverty reduction, the Department must make every effort to present its work in a way that is accessible and meaningful to the public. This would be assisted by emphasising its desired outcomes in the promotion of its major programmes rather than the sums of money to be spent.

RAISING THE DEPARTMENT'S PROFILE

140. Only 22% of survey respondents said that they knew a lot, a fair amount or even a little about DFID. 54% said that they had never heard of the Department before it was mentioned to them during the survey. Some contributors to our eConsultation reported that they had very little knowledge about what DFID was or what it did. One contributor commented that he had "only been vaguely aware of DFID before this eConsultation".[248] Others who knew about the Department themselves nevertheless believed knowledge amongst the general public was low. One contributor said: "If the intention is for the UK public to know about DFID, what it does, what its achievements are, etc then a huge amount [of additional publicity] is needed"[249]

141. However, academics and NGO representatives took a different view. They were not particularly concerned about the low level of public knowledge about DFID. When asked "Does it matter that DFID does not mean anything to most people?" Professor Pharoah responded "No, it does not matter at all—not if we are talking about the general public."[250] The Secretary of State told us that he was not sure that the level of public awareness about the existence of his Department was "the true measure of our success as a Government department."[251] He did acknowledge, however, that DFID needed "to work harder to make sure that the people of Britain understand not necessarily the name of the Department but the work that the Department is doing."[252] He commented that British NGOs did not spend much time telling their supporters about the money they get from the British Government. He felt that they could do more to publicise the substantial amount of funding they received from DFID: in some cases as much as 70% of their core resources.[253]

142. While Mr Alexander did not think that it was particularly important to increase the number of people who knew about his Department, he did emphasise the need to build a consensus around what its purpose is.[254]He described the shift he wanted to bring about in the way people viewed UK development spending:

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He also suggested that the Department could raise its profile by re-naming itself. Not surprisingly, people did not feel a "natural emotional attachment" towards government ministries:

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In the past DFID had gained legitimacy and credibility from focusing on partner country-led development rather than "waving the flag" and the judgement had been made that it was "sustainable" for people not to be aware of the work of the Department. His view was that this was no longer case. The publication of the Department's new White Paper later this year would provide a "natural opportunity" for making a change in terms of increasing the visibility of the Department.[257]

143. The question of the Department's title is something that has struck us when we travel overseas to observe DFID's work. During our recent visit to Kenya we saw projects being run by Solidarités, a French NGO, whose work in North Horr is funded by DFID. The NGO personnel were wearing t-shirts with a "DFID-Solidarités" logo. Local people benefiting from the DFID-Solidarités projects told us that they had no idea what DFID was, although they knew about Solidarités.

144. We have noted in previous reports that there are occasions when there are advantages to DFID having a name that does not directly link it to the UK, because of political sensitivities in some parts of the world about the UK's international role.[258] Nevertheless, we believe that a change in the Department's nomenclature to one that more clearly identified its work as being funded by British taxpayers, for example British Aid or DFID UK, might increase accountability and public awareness at home and abroad of the valuable and extensive development work that the UK funds and carries out.

145. We endorse the Secretary of State's view that the UK's development work needs to gain greater resonance in the public consciousness. We, too, want to reach a point where the UK's achievements in meeting its international commitments to developing countries is seen as being part of our national identity. We agree that increased public awareness of DFID's work could make a significant contribution to this and that greater visibility for the Department's activities is a key component of a more effective public relations strategy. We would therefore support a change in the Department's name to better reflect what it does and that it is funded by UK taxpayers. We are open-minded on what the new title should be but "British Aid" or "DFID UK" seem like reasonable suggestions. The Secretary of State indicated that this matter would be included in DFID's new White Paper to be published later this year—we look forward to seeing firm proposals for change then.

Engaging with young people

146. We heard from the DEA, a development education charity, that providing people with a detailed understanding of development issues in one of the most efficient ways to strengthen long-term public support for development. Its submission argued that this is more effective than "simplistic public relations and awareness raising campaigns" as "the public may believe these and support them when they see them but soon forget [them] [...] if they have not thoroughly thought the message through and made connections to their own lives."[259]

147. DFID has stated that education is a key part of its longer term strategy for building support for development.[260] It pledged in its 2006 White Paper that the UK Government would "double its investment in development education," and "seek to give every child in the UK the chance to learn about the issues that shape their world."[261] The budget for development awareness is currently £19 million and will rise to £24 million in 2009-10.[262]DFID also provides funding for regional development education centres which provide teachers with guidance and educational materials to enable them to include global and developmental issues in their lessons.[263] As part of the review of its work on building support for development in the UK, DFID will be re-examining its work in the education sector.[264]

COMMUNITY LINKAGE INITIATIVE

148. While NGOs involved in development education were generally supportive of DFID's work in this area they did raise specific concerns about the Department's Community Linkage initiative. This project aims to increase links and partnerships between schools and communities in the UK and those in countries where DFID works, for example through 'twinning' schools. Hetan Shah, Chief Executive of DEA, said that they had received anecdotal evidence that this work can "reinforce stereotypes" about people in the developing world.[265] He also expressed concern that: "DFID has increasingly focused on the quantity of links rather than the quality of links, and so we are concerned that by driving up the numbers […] it may have an actual effect on the quality of the work."[266] Mr Shah also raised doubts about the cost-effectiveness of these programmes saying that, whilst ensuring effective co-operation between local authorities, schools and NGOs in this country "is slightly less glamorous than a link, it actually has more effect upon helping young people understand the issues."[267]

149. When we raised Mr Shah's concerns with the Secretary of State he said that he believed that programmes that involved young people spending time in developing countries were an important part of raising awareness of the challenges these countries faced:

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150. Time spent in a developing country can clearly be a worthwhile and rewarding experience for the young people involved. However, DFID must ensure that it is using its resources for awareness-raising in a way that achieves the maximum possible impact. It may be that "less glamorous" work in the UK would be a more efficient use of money than funding people to travel abroad. We suggest that the Department uses the opportunity presented by the review of its development awareness work to reassess its Community Linkage initiative and reflect upon whether it is the most effective way to achieve the Department's aims.

BROADENING DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION

151. The DEA also argued that DFID could do more to expand the reach of development education programmes. It highlighted evidence of an "increasing demand from the youth sectors to introduce development awareness and global learning into their work in response to the interests and concerns of young people" and emphasised the role that "global youth work" could play in engaging young people outside formal education. DEA noted that: "At present there is very little support for global youth work and no strategic coordination that could ensure the potential of this work is maximised."[269]

152. Mr Shah remarked that, while there were some examples of good practice in delivering global education in higher and further education, this was not yet being taken up in a systematic way.^. He believed that DFID should commit to expanding global learning into "non-formal education for young people, further education and higher education—to build on the sort of work it has done with schools."[270]

153. DFID needs to build on the work it has done to increase public awareness of development in schools. We recommend that, as part of the review of its building support for development programmes, DFID investigate the possibility of extending its work with young people beyond schools into youth work, and higher and further education.

212 Ev 97 Back

213 DFID, Attitudinal tracking study - February 2009, March 2009, p 4 Back

214 Q 289 Back

215 DFID, Attitudinal tracking study - February 2009, March 2009, p 4 Back

216 DFID, Attitudinal tracking study - February 2009, March 2009, p 4 Back

217 Charities Commission, Economic Survey of Charities, 17 March 2009, p2 Back

218 DFID, Public Attitudes Towards Development, October 2008, section 7.2 Back

219 "Hard-up shoppers abandon fair trade and their principles as the economic crisis hits budgets", The Times, 26 March 2009 Back

220 Q 126 Back

221 Ev 152-153 Back

222 Q 126 Back

223 Q 126 Back