Policy Updates

On May 24, 2024, ICAI released an informative note on the UK's humanitarian response to Gaza, which showed that the UK has tripled the planned amount of assistance to the region since the outbreak of the crisis in October 2023.

The note did not make evaluative judgments on the UK’s performance. It complemented a report published by the IDC on March 1, 2024, on the UK’s humanitarian response to the situation in Gaza.

The note reported that over 35,000 people in Gaza have lost their lives as a result of Israel's military campaign retaliating against a violent attack against its citizens. 1.7 million people are currently displaced in Gaza, with 1 million facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

The note shows that between 2022 and 2023, the UK was due to spend GBP26 million (US$30 million) in ODA to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with a further GBP27 million (US$32 million) to be allocated for FY2023/24. The humanitarian assistance included funding to UNRWA.

In response to the crisis, the UK announced an additional GBP70 million (US$84 million) in assistance, tripling planned funding for the territories in FY2023/24 to more than GBP100 million (US$120 million). The UK Ministry of Defense has supported the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territories.

In November 2023, the UK revised its humanitarian strategy, initially focusing on diplomacy, advocacy, and flexible funding. Priorities included obtaining multiple humanitarian pauses and increasing humanitarian land access to Gaza. Two additional revisions followed the first.

Most of the support provided by the UK was flexible funding for partners with a long-existing presence within Gaza. In-kind donations to support shelter, core relief items, and logistical support were prioritized, as well as appropriate logistical support. UK humanitarian assistance focused on health support, food and nutrition, shelter, WASH, and support to address GBV and ensure child protection.

The note indicated significant difficulties in getting assistance to those who need it due to restricted access to Gaza. It also showed that the UK has presently put its funding to UNRWA on hold due to allegations, since disputed, that some of its staff were involved in the October attack.

The note finally indicated several potential future lines of inquiry that could be conducted by the ICAI, the UK IDC, or other investigative bodies. The lines included:

• What are the circumstances in which the UK would publicly state its assessment of whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law, and what would be the consequences of such an assessment;
• Given the critical role of UNRWA, what are the UK’s plans for further funding;
• What is the UK’s strategy for restoring adequate food and essential goods supplies to Gaza and ensuring sustainable humanitarian access;
• Should the UK continue to support the development of a maritime corridor;
• What preparations is the UK making to respond to the long-term harm suffered by the population of Gaza; and
• What planning is FCDO undertaking, with international partners, for the recovery and reconstruction of Gaza.

On May 17, 2024, it was announced that the US has begun to deliver needed humanitarian assistance through a temporary pier into Gaza, which it characterized as a supplemental channel for emergency assistance and not a substitute for land deliveries.

This effort is being led by USAID and the US Department of Defense, and involves Cyprus, Israel, the UN, the UAE, the UK, and the EU. The conflict conditions in Gaza have engendered a dire need for food, shelter, medicine, and other emergency assistance.

The decision to set up the humanitarian maritime corridor was motivated in part by the slow delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Assistance delivered by truck has been reduced to approximately 100 trucks a day since the beginning of the conflict, approximately one-sixth of full operation. USAID's initial contributions through the pier will be hundreds of metric tons a day, including nutrient rich food for the most vulnerable children and adults. Other assistance includes shelter, water, and hygiene kits.

On May 16, 2024, international NGO Christian Aid released a new report, titled Between Life and Debt, that outlined the devastating debt crisis engulfing Africa and calling on the UK government to address the crisis through legal intervention.

The report, which draws on testimonies from Christian Aid partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Zambia, revealed that:

• Total external debt service by all African countries was US$85 billion in 2023 and US$104 billion in 2024;
• In 2023, African countries spent over 50 times more on external debt than they received in aid from the UK (and 50% more than total assistance to the region);
• 25 African countries spend more on debt than education; and
• 32 African countries spend more on debt than healthcare.

The report asserted that the debt problem is largely due to Western private lenders, who have lent to Africa at extremely high interest rates, far higher than other sovereign lenders like China. Total external debt service by all African countries to private creditors was US$39 billion in 2023 and US$47 billion in 2024, and that private creditors charge the highest interest rates of 6.2%.

Christian Aid argued that the UK government has the unique power to help remedy the crisis, given that most private creditors, due to colonial history, are governed by British law. The organization called on the UK to step up and take action to change UK law to compel private creditors to cancel debts and stop the crisis.

On May 15, 2024, UK Foreign Minister David Cameron met with Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak and announced that the UK would increase its humanitarian assistance to Yemen by 58% from 2024 to 2025, for a total of GBP139 million (US$166 million), to alleviate the worsening humanitarian crisis.

The funding will mainly be delivered through critical partners like WFP and UNICEF and is aimed at supporting primary healthcare, including child vaccinations and vital nutrition interventions.

Over half the population of Yemen is dependent on humanitarian assistance. Since 2015, the UK has provided more than GBP1 billion (US$1.2 billion) in assistance to Yemen.

On May 14-15, 2024, the C7 summit was held at the UN FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, organized by the Italian Civil Society Coalition that led, coordinated, and moderated the C7 2024 process.

Approximately 400 global representatives took part in the event, as well as international decision-makers, including FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, Italian G7 sherpa Ambassador Elisabetta Belloni, Cardinal, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Pope’s envoy for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict Matteo Maria Zuppi, and Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign Marina Ponti.

The official C7 communiqué that listed the international civil society recommendation to the G7’s Leaders around seven key issues was released at the event, which included:

• Economic justice and transformation;
• Climate, energy transformation, and environmental justice;
• Global health;
• Principled humanitarian assistance;
• Peace, common security, and nuclear disarmament;
• Human mobility and migration; and
• Food justice and food systems transformation.

On May 2, 2024, the UK government responded to the ICAI, the UK’s aid watchdog, recommendations for tackling fraud in UK ODA funding.

The FCDO thanked ICAI for reviewing the UK's approach to combating fraud in ODA funding released earlier in 2024. The FCDO partially accepted ICAI’s first recommendation to take a more robust and proactive approach to anticipating fraud. The FCDO noted that it was actively exploring the cost-effectiveness of creating an FCDO Fraud Intelligence Unit and was expanding its Fraud Liaison Officers’ Network to strengthen oversight.

The FCDO also partially accepted the second recommendation to strengthen its fraud in its top 20 ODA recipient countries, noting that it will reinforce the mandatory annual assurance assessment across control and risk areas and expand its Fraud Liaison Officer's network.

The FCDO fully accepted the final two recommendations, which called for new fraud management guidance to be written for capital investments and to increase the Head of Mission’s oversight and accountability for fraud risks relating to centrally managed and other government programs.

On April 16, 2024, UK Deputy Foreign Minister Andrew Mitchell announced an additional GBP100 million (US$119 million) in humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia.

The funding is slated to be used to support Ethiopia’s access to primary healthcare services, support communities in becoming more climate resilient, and provide help for people displaced due to drought and extreme weather.

The pledge was made at the UK co-hosted Ethiopia pledging conference with OCHA. Ethiopia is facing one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with over 21 million requiring assistance, 15 million people facing food insecurity, and 4 million people internally displaced.

On March 28, 2024, UK Minister for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell committed to increasing humanitarian ODA to Sudan to GBP89 million (US$106 million) in 2024/25 in the face of growing humanitarian need in the region.

The commitment was made by Mitchell while on a trip to Chad, where he acknowledged the growing number of refugees from Sudan arriving in the country.

Some of the funding is slated to go to UNICEF for emergency and life-saving food assistance and nutrition, water and hygiene services for 500,000 children and to support survivors of gender-based violence. The funding will also support the WFP to provide assorted food commodities, including cereals, pulses, oils, and salt for thousands of people.

On March 25, 2024, amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan, Open Canada is criticized the government of Canada for its inaction to address the public health and nutrition crisis, as well as the government’s lack of focus on the African continent as a whole.

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan followed the outbreak of war in April 2023, with 8 million people displaced, roughly half the population (approximately 25 million people) in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, a cholera outbreak, and a widespread famine predicted by June 2024.

Open Canada criticized the government for its passivity in the crisis, with neither Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nor Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly having spoken publicly about Sudan since shortly after the outbreak of war. While Canada evacuated its Sudanese embassy in April 2023, it did not follow other donor countries in maintaining the presence of a senior official in the region to assist in conflict resolution or support key international humanitarian and development organizations. Open Canada also noted that, unlike the EU, UK, and US, Canada has not imposed sanctions on Sudan.

The group also criticized Canada's apathetic approach to the region more broadly. Canada announced a new Foreign Policy Engagement Plan for Africa in 2022, however, the strategy has since been transitioned into a “framework” with the Canadian government yet to release any details of the plan. Open Canada called on the Canadian government to implement a proper engagement strategy in Africa, particularly amid the growing humanitarian, development, and security crisis in Sudan.

On March 24, 2024, BOND published a new manifesto setting out the steps the next UK government should take to help deliver on the SDGs and work in solidarity with its partners.

The manifesto is based around seven key asks:

• Act as a responsible and ambitious development partner. This includes returning ODA to 0.7% of GNI and providing new and additional resources for meeting global climate finance and ensuring the ODA program is headed by a cabinet-level minister with dedicated and well-resourced staff;
• Create an equitable and sustainable international financial system that works for people, nature, and the climate. This includes supporting a UN sovereign debt workout mechanism to deal with unsustainable debt in lower-income countries, pursuing an ambitious MDB reform agenda that increases their provision of resources and makes their governance more representative, and supporting a universal UN Framework Convention on tax;
• Recommit to the SDGs and ‘leaving no one behind. This includes ensuring UK development programs focus on those most in need, promoting gender transformative approaches to sustainable development, acknowledging care as an economic issue and a right and build the care economy in line with the 5Rs framework{title"recognition, reduction, redistribution, representation and reward"} for care work, and scaling up efforts to deliver universal access to basic services;
• Do our fair share to tackle the global climate and biodiversity crises. This includes ensuring all ODA is aligned with the Paris Agreement, providing genuinely new and additional grant finance for the Loss and Damage Fund;
• Develop a new approach to UK trade and private sector investment. This includes introducing new legislation that mandates companies, the financial sector, and the public sector operating in the UK to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence. It also holds them to account for failures, reduce the volume of UK funding being used to capitalize BII until it reforms to ensure it does more to contribute to poverty reduction;
• Promoting stability, security and effective crisis responses. This includes providing the UK’s fair share to support humanitarian crises, championing locally led approaches to anticipatory crisis prevention, action and resilience, establishing a prevention-focused national security outlook which focuses on preventing crises as well as responding to them; and
• Protect and promote rights, freedoms and civic space. This includes prioritizing meaningful partnerships with human rights defenders, including indigenous communities, women, LGBTQI+ advocates, migrant rights advocates and environmental defenders, removing restrictions on civil society campaigning domestically, and working with other governments to reverse restrictions on civic space in public debate and policymaking.