1 Introduction
"A good job can change a person's life,
and the right jobs can transform entire societies. Governments
need to move jobs to centre stage to promote prosperity and fight
poverty."
1. These were the words of World Bank Group President
Jim Yong Kim[1] as he introduced
the World Development Report 2013: Jobs. The challenge
set by Jim Yong Kim has been embraced by DFID. The Secretary of
State for DFID, Rt Hon Justine Greening MP made a speech at the
London Stock Exchange a year later in January 2014 entitled "Smart
aid: Why it's all about jobs." In the speech she said:
"Growth reduces poverty through jobs…raising
incomes for individuals through the dignity of work and providing
tax receipts for governments to fund basic public services like
health and education."[2]
Universal health and education systems if implemented
will in themselves provide substantial numbers of jobs through
the employment of teachers and health care workers. Following
this speech the Department announced it was doubling the amount
it spent on economic development to £1.8bn for 2015/16 and
launched a new strategy to direct how the money would be spent
its Economic Development Strategic Framework.
2. This inquiry examines DFID's new economic development
strategy and its increased budget to ascertain what impacts DFID
was hoping to make or could make on increasing jobs. Most people
in the developing world work in the informal sector as there is
not enough formal waged jobs available. Improving livelihoods
is therefore also very important so this report looks additionally
at DFID's work on livelihoods. We announced the inquiry in July
2014. In the call for evidence we asked questions such as: what
had worked in increasing jobs and improving livelihoods; whether
DFID's expenditure had shown sufficient understanding of these
factors; whether DFID worked well with the private sector; and
where DFID had the comparative advantage compared to other donors.
3. This is not the first time the Committee has looked
at the subject of economic development and DFID's work with the
private sector. Our predecessor Committee reported on DFID's private
sector development work in 2006 and said:
we commend the policies and financing mechanisms
that DFID is using in support of private sector development. DFID
has developed an array of innovative private sector development
policies and is showing intellectual leadership in pursuing investment
climate improvements simultaneously with supporting market development
strategies.[3]
However it also had concerns over:
whether DFID's organisational and operational
capacities have kept pace with the Department's rapid proliferation
of policy interventions towards private sector development.[4]
In addition at the beginning of this parliament we
undertook an inquiry on CDC[5],
the UK's Development Finance Institution and more recently on
the future of development finance.[6]
CDC has an important role in creating jobs so as part of this
inquiry we heard from its chief executive.
4. For this inquiry we took evidence from various
NGOs including those representing smallholder farmers, women,
disabled people, youth and older people. The Committee visited
Tanzania, one of DFID's priority countries for its economic development
work-there we travelled around the country meeting smallholder
farmers, industry representatives, government officials and representatives
of NGOs to understand how DFID's high level policy on economic
development and job creation was translating at country programme
level. We would like to thank all of those DFID staff who helped
facilitate this visit as well as all of the people who took time
out of their busy schedules to meet with us.
1 Jobs are a cornerstone of development, says World
Development Report 2013 Back
2
Rt Hon Justine Greening MP at the London Stock Exchange January
2014 "Smart aid: Why it's all about jobs." Back
3
International Development Committee Fourth Report of Session 2005-06
Private Sector Development HC 921, Summary Back
4
International Development Committee Fourth Report of Session 2005-06
Private Sector Development HC 921, Summary Back
5
International Development Committee Fourth Report of Session 2010-11
The Future of CDC HC 607 Back
6
International Development Committee Eighth Report of Session 2013-14
The Future of UK Development Co-operation: Phase 1: Development Finance
HC 334 Back
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