Select committee: International Development Committee
Recommendation 21
Fifth Report - Extreme poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals
Published 13 Dec 2022
Paragraph 103
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
International Development Committee Extreme poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
A lack of policy coherence can lead to counterproductive actions, such as cutting funding to groups and regions that have previously been identified as priorities. Creating strategies is important, but they cannot exist in silos or fail to consider other previously identified strategic objectives. Furthermore, without clear targets and actions, progress cannot be measured. As well as contributing to a cross- departmental Global Health Strategy, the FCDO must link its strategies to coherent, published delivery plans, which should include clear targets, timelines and financial allocations. In particular, the disability inclusion and rights strategy 2022–2030 must feed into all the Department’s development work, or it risks becoming an empty promise.
From: International Development Committee, Fifth Report - Extreme poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals (HC 149), paragraph 103, 13 December 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 6 March 2023 (deadline 13 February 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and to ending extreme poverty, and in response to the Committee's recommendations it largely points to existing strategies and programmes rather than adopting new structures.
- On a cross-government Global Health Strategy, it describes an existing "HMG Strategic Framework" and says Ministers "are considering options for communicating" it. No new strategy or six-month deadline is committed to.
- On the 0.7% of GNI aid target, it says it is committed to spending 0.7% "as soon as the fiscal situation allows", and states this was re-emphasised at the Autumn Statement 2022.
- On adding the $2.15 extreme poverty line to British International Investment's scoring, it says doing so was "considered and rejected at the time because it did not materially change the scores".
- On transparency and reporting, it has "made a public commitment to attain 'Very Good' in the 2024 Aid Transparency Index" and intends to update planned ODA allocations "in due course". On a 2023 Voluntary National Review, it says "No decision has been made".