Restoring leadership on international development: Labour’s first 100 days

Top Lines 

Labour have announced ambitious plans for development, ‘restoring the UK’s leadership on international development’, and ‘lighting up the world’. As Lisa Nandy MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for International Development notes, the world has dramatically changed since Labour was last in government, with many new challenges. 

To meet these challenges with a limited budget, the next Labour government should find ways to make spending go further. We identify four ways to do this. Each of these requires the UK to work with, rather than around, governments in the global south. 

1. Focus on the most cost-effective approaches for each objective. These often have ten or a hundred times the impact per every pound spent. 

2. Invest in innovation. Developing new technologies and policy approaches can have even larger returns, because once developed they can be deployed by governments in the global south and other donors, as well as the UK. 

3. Restore leadership in the multilateral system. The UK could then influence a much greater pool of funding and improve its effectiveness even further. 

4. Use instruments beyond aid to give the Global South a better deal. The UK's relationship with developing countries is about much more than aid, with issues extending from trade, to Artificial Intelligence or pandemic preparedness to name a few.