2 The continuing role for aid
13. The UK can be proud of its commitment to aid,
having recently achieved the iconic target of spending 0.7% of
its gross national income on official development assistance (ODA).
The UK was widely praised by witnesses as a global leader. It
ranks highly on comparative measures of aid effectiveness. For
example, the most recent measure of the Quality of Official Development
Assistance (QuODA), published by the Center for Global Development
in July 2014, shows the UK performing in the top third of 31 donors
on three out of four composite measures of aid quality (themselves
based on 31 separate indicators—see Figure 2).[12]
The OECD DAC Peer Review of the UK, published in December 2014,
makes many complimentary comments about the aid programme (Box
1), praising cross-party consensus, political leadership and careful
management.[13] It also
makes suggestions for further improvement, especially in regard
to simplification of accountability procedures.
14. As we stated in Phase 1 of this inquiry, the
need for the UK to maintain a significant development budget is
still very real, not just on humanitarian grounds—compelling
a motivation as this is—but also to tackle the causes of
instability in a dangerous world, to reach the very poorest, and
so that the UK can play its part in maintaining the UK's global
influence. The UK Aid Network emphasised that "increased
awareness of the range and scope of development challenges and
tools must not come at the expense of effective aid policy particularly
in those countries which need it most (least developed, and low
income, countries).[14]
15. We do not
see it as necessary to explore further in this report the case
for aid. Aid absolutely still matters, notably for humanitarian
purposes and to support poverty reduction and human development
in low-income countries. It also has a limited role helping to
build partnerships with emerging powers and other middle income
countries. Increased awareness of the range and scope of development
challenges must not come at the expense of effective aid policy.
In Phase 1 of this inquiry we recorded our full support for the
0.7% aid target. We strongly endorse
the continuing need to maintain development spending at 0.7% of
GNI.Figure 2: UK Performance on the Quality
of Official Development Assistance (July 2014)
Source:
http://www.cgdev.org/initiative/commitment-development-index/index
12 Center for Global Development, The Quality of Official Development Assistance 2014
(December 2014) Back
13
OECD DAC Peer Review of the UK (December 2014) Back
14
UKAN submission Back
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