Response to Conservative Party's aid policy

Yesterday's speech by David Cameron at Save the Children headquarters indicates an important commitment to international development

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Save the Children provided a forum, as part of a series with the main political parties, for Conservative leader David Cameron to lay out his party's plans for international development, following the publication of the Conservatives' Green Paper on International Development. Read our response to the DFID White Paper on International Development.

We welcome the commitment from the party leader, David Cameron, that he will match the current government’s commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid no later than 2013.

In this clip, David Cameron presents the Conservative's green paper on International Development, introduced by Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children's Chief Executive:

Watch the Q&A following Cameron's speech.

Child and Maternal Health

There are a number of positive elements to this document; the emphasis placed on tackling maternal and child mortality and the clearly stated priority to ensure that all mothers and their children can access basic health services.

Addressing Food Security & malnutrition

We support the commitment to combine investment in boosting agricultural production with targeted nutrition programmes and social safety nets for mothers and children - so that the poorest children and their mothers can consume adequate amounts of food and avoid malnutrition.

Education

There are other aspects of the Green Paper that we don’t support, including the proposal to introduce education vouchers. Our experience suggests that this will involve additional bureaucracy to set up and administer, and will distract attention from the more pressing task of scaling up public investment in basic education for all children, particularly in conflict affected and fragile states. Whilst we agree with the paper’s assertion that there is undoubtedly space for the private sector in the provision of health services, there needs to be a debunking of the assumption that the private sector automatically provides better services, more efficient and possibly more equitably than governments.

Humanitarian Emergencies

We are also very sceptical about the closer integration of military and humanitarian action. While there needs to be excellent communication between these actors on the ground, linking humanitarian agencies too closely to the military can compromise the neutrality and independence of the former and expose them to greater risk.

MyAid

The Conservatives 'MyAid' proposal to give the public a bigger say over how UK aid money is spent, seems poorly thought through and fraught with difficulty. Development can't be run like the X-factor. How we allocate development resources should be informed by quality analysis of the needs on the ground. Whilst it's important that the public remains engaged, there is a danger that unfashionable sectors - like sanitation - will get ignored and short-term preferences will undermine longer-term development needs.

Save the Children CEO Jasmine Whitbread has written an article highlighting that aid works, and why in the current economic climate, it is even more important for the UK to remains a leading donor. Read the article.
Read the Green Paper.
Read our submission on the DFID White Paper.

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