Policy Updates

On February 1, 2025, the UK government has announced GBP22 million (US$26 million) in additional humanitarian assistance for Myanmar in 2024-2025 to support nearly one million vulnerable people.

This funding will provide essential healthcare, nutrition assistance, and treatment for diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. The support will also strengthen climate resilience by improving food security, water management, and disaster preparedness, helping communities withstand extreme weather events.

On December 15, 2024, the UK announced a GBP50 million (US$64 million) package of international assistance to help the most vulnerable Syrians, including refugees across the region.

Following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that new emergency assistance will be delivered through the UN and NGO agencies to help the most vulnerable Syrians, in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

The UK joined talks in Aqaba yesterday, hosted by Jordan and attended by ministers and representatives of the Arab Contact Group, Bahrain, Qatar, Turkey, the UAE, the EU, the UK, France, Germany, and the US, where participants expressed commitment the best interests of the Syrian people, the region, and the world.

On November 21, 2024, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed the UK as a founding member of the Brazil-led Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty and announced a GBP70 million (US$90 million) package to tackle global food insecurity and poverty.

The UK is a founding member of the Brazil-led group, which has attracted over 80 countries so far, each making important commitments to accelerate action on global food insecurity. Members will share expertise to deliver interventions that work at scale and come together to unlock the crucial finance needed to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty.

The UK will sit on the Alliance’s steering group, the Board of Champions, and invest GBP70 million (US$90 million) over the next 18 months to enable food-insecure households to withstand shocks, drive green growth in the agriculture sector, and improve social protection for those in need.

The announcement included up to GBP50 million (US$64 million) for the new Resilience and Adaptation Fund, which will harness climate finance to ensure that food-insecure households in countries like Ethiopia, Chad, and Bangladesh can withstand shocks and extreme weather.

On November 7, 2024, UK International Development Minister Anneilese Dodds met with Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota for Brazil, to hand over the UK’s Statement of Commitment to join Brazil’s Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty at the G20.

Earlier this year in September, the UK played a key role in securing a declaration to support sustainable agriculture and promote food security at a meeting of G20 Agriculture Ministers in Brazil. Signing the G20 Agricultural Declaration, Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner affirmed the government’s commitment to sustainable agri-food systems.

On October 28, 2024, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave a statement to the House of Commons on the Middle East, outlining the current situation in Israel, Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon.

On Israel, Gaza, and Iran, he urged for de-escalation and for restrictions on humanitarian assistance to be lifted. Lammy said that the UK will be matching donations to the Disaster Emergency Committee’s Middle East Humanitarian Appeal, as well as restoring funding to UNRWA and urging Israel to ensure UNRWA's work continues.

Lammy reminded the House of Commons that at the start of October 2024, he announced GBP10 million (US$13 million) for the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. The previous week, UK Minister for Development Anneliese Dodds announced further funding for the most vulnerable fleeing Lebanon and Syria.

On October 10 and 11, 2024, the G7's Health Ministerial Meeting took place in Ancona, Italy. The discussion focused on three overarching priorities: Global Health Architecture and Pandemic Preparedness and Response, healthy and active aging, and the One Health Approach.

The G7 Health Ministers Communiqué, released at the end of the meeting, highlights the G7's commitment to supporting SDG #3 through universal health coverage, primary health care, and sexual and reproductive health. This also includes maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health, strengthening the global health architecture by investing in PPR, promoting regional manufacturing of health products, and equitable access to quality health services.

The communiqué emphasized the health-related impacts of conflicts with a reference to the crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan. Furthermore, in the communiqué, the G7 Ministries committed to continue to support Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund, whose replenishment processes will occur in the upcoming months.

The Civil 7 engagement group, a platform through which civil society can engage with the G7, reacted with a communiqué in which they expressed an appreciation for the re-commitment to ending HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria through robust support for the Global Fund in its replenishment next year. This support is crucial to ending the three epidemics as agreed upon in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Finally, the G7 Health Ministers also adopted a policy brief on the opportunities presented by AI for both healthcare providers and patients.

On September 5, 2024, UK Minister for Africa Lord Ray Collins announced that the UK would be making a GBP25 million (US$30 million) investment in the African agri-sector to boost production and strengthen food security in the face of climate threats.

The minister announced the funding during his keynote speech at the AFSF in Rwanda. The funding will be allocated to AgDevCo, a UK-based African agribusiness investor. The funds will go towards its new US$50 million facility called AgDevCo Ventures. The new facility will focus on supporting small African agricultural enterprises, emphasizing African-owned and managed businesses.

The funding is expected to result in an increase in income of GBP128 million (US$153 million) for recipients by 2036.

On July 24, 2024, UK Minister for Development Anneliese Dodds spoke at the G20 Development Ministers' Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and indicated the UK’s intention to join the Brazilian president’s Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, which she noted focused on action, sharing solutions, exchanging expertise, and unlocking much-needed finance.

Dodds highlighted that the UK has already contributed expertise to the work of the Global Alliance Taskforce and would also be happy to join the Board of Champions and bring in the UK’s global network of development, academic and civil society organizations.

Dodds also set out how the UK will modernize its approach to international development, noting that the UK government is intent on creating a world without poverty on a liveable planet, and to work in equal partnership with low- and middle-income countries.

On June 14, 2024, the second day of the G7 Summit, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced nearly CAD687 million (US$501 million) to strengthen sustainable agricultural, climate resiliency, and foster gender equality in low- and middle-income countries.

Within the funding was CAD200 million (US$146 million) to IFAD, including:

• CAD100 million (US$73 million) to reduce poverty and food insecurity while strengthening climate resilience, with a focus on poor, vulnerable, and rural communities; and
• CAD100 million (US$73 million) as a repayable contribution to IFAD’s Private Sector Financing Programme to support investments in the agricultural sector in low- and middle-income countries, especially in the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.

Canada also announced new funding for the Indo-Pacific region, which is home to the largest number of climate-vulnerable people in the world. Funding included:

• CAD360 million (US$262 million) in repayable contributions to the ADB to establish the Canadian Climate and Nature Fund for the Private Sector in Asia to mobilize private capital toward inclusive climate change mitigation and adaptation projects; and
• CAD7 million (US$5 million) through the IDRC to build on Canada’s existing partnership with the UK to expand the IDRC’s AI for Development program for responsible AI innovation and capacity building in the Indo-Pacific.

Lastly, Canada announced new funding to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ people, including:

• CAD100 million (US$73 million) in the International Finance Corporation’s Facility for Gender Equality, Resilience, Opportunity, and Inclusion Worldwide, which is expected to mobilize an estimated CAD470 million (US$342 million) in private capital for investments that empower women and promote gender inclusion; and
• CAD20 million (US$15 million) to TradeMark Africa and the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation to help eliminate the gender-based barriers that prevent women from fully participating in opportunities afforded by the African Continental Free Trade Area.

On June 11 and 13, 2024, the UK Conservative and Labour parties released their election manifestos, containing limited references to international development, ahead of the national election on July 4, 2024.

International development did not feature prominently in either manifesto, instead being overshadowed by domestic affairs.

The manifestos showed both stark differences and intriguing similarities on the subject of international development. Both parties committing to maintain the merger of the FCO and former DFID into the FCDO. Labour committed to strengthening the development function within the FCDO. Both parties also committed to a return to providing 0.7% ODA/GNI, but only when the fiscal circumstances allow.

The Conservative Party’s manifesto committed the party to:

• Ensuring all ODA spending is allocated in line with a strict national interest test, notably without a definition of the test;
• Working with partners to deliver the UN SDGs and tackling poverty;
• Maintaining a focus on fragile states;
• Ensuring that MDBs deliver more funds to partners in need and work to deliver debt relief;
• Expanding international campaigns on girls’ education, women’s rights and reproductive health and standing up to those persecuted for their faith;
• Scaling-up high-impact, cost-effective global health interventions, including MNCH services, nutrition, and AMR while continuing support for Gavi and the Global Fund; and
• Maintaining climate leadership while retaining the current government’s international climate finance commitments.

The Labour Party focused on modernizing UK development assistance and committed to:

• Rebuilding Britain’s reputation in international development to ensure leadership;
• Taking a new approach to partnerships with the 'global South' based on mutual interest and genuine respect;
• Ensuring UK ODA is focused on a new mission to eliminating poverty and promoting sustainable lifestyles;
• Renewing expertise and focus on key areas, including supporting economic transformation, tackling unsustainable debt, empowering women and girls, supporting conflict prevention, and unlocking climate finance;
• Driving climate leadership, both domestically and abroad, and creating a new Clean Power Alliance to lead on climate action; and
• Improving the accountability and transparency of ODA spending by working closely with the ICAI to ensure the highest standards are applied to UK ODA spending regarding ODA effectiveness, transparency, and scrutiny.