Scrutinising UK aid in a changing landscape

11 January, 2016

ICAI has produced a paper exploring the changing international development landscape and how this will impact the aid watchdog’s scrutiny of the UK’s aid budget.

Scrutinising UK aid in a changing landscape.
Scrutinising UK aid in a changing landscape.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has produced a new briefing paper explring the changing international development landscape and how this will impact the aid watchdog’s scrutiny of the UK’s aid budget.

2015 was a seminal year for international development both in the UK and globally. It saw the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, a new UK Aid Strategy and the announcement of a £1.5 billion Global Challenges research fund over the next 5 years.

The ICAI’s report, ‘UK aid in a changing world: implications for ICAI’, highlights this evolving aid landscape. In particular, the increasing spending by a wider number of government departments, greater use of large, cross-government programmes and an increased focus on economic growth, fragile states and climate change.

In recognition of this, the ICAI plans to modify its review process. “With the aid budget continuing to grow, effectiveness and value for money remain central concerns,” said ICAI chief commissioner Alison Evans. “We will pay close attention to how well DFID responds to new challenges and will provide close oversight of how other government departments spend UK aid.”

Recognising that the evidence base about which approaches work for some of these new focus areas are limited, ICAI plans to introduce learning reviews to “explore new and emerging areas of the aid programme to capture learning and inform future decision-making.”

See the original news piece on the ICAI website.

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