Defining a new era for UK international development: Part 2

Bond’s working groups outline the issues that the new UK government must prioritise to bring in a more effective era of UK overseas development assistance.

This blog is part two. You can read part one here.

Child rights

With 333 million children growing up in extreme poverty and 1 in 6 of the world’s children living in armed conflict zones, our message to Keir Starmer is simple: children need to be at the centre of UK aid and foreign policy and their rights protected.

A child rights-based approach to international development means:

1. Providing for children: Deliver UK aid spending that invests in children, ensuring their basic needs are met by investing in the whole child rather than siloed by sector.
2. Protecting children: Ensure that UK aid does no harm and promotes child protection. Use UK global influence to hold those who violate children’s rights to account.
3. Listening to children: Meaningfully engage children and young people in policymaking processes, drawing upon their expertise and lived experiences to ensure UK aid has the greatest impact.

Water, sanitation and hygiene

Currently, 2.2 billion people do not have access to safe water. At the same time, the escalating impacts of the climate crisis, the threat of future health pandemics and global instability threaten Labour’s vision of a world free from poverty on a liveable planet – with water the blue thread running through each of them.

Progress on tackling these global challenges will fall short if water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) do not form a cornerstone of Labour’s plans. Under the Conservatives, the UK’s WASH budget was cut by 77%, down to just £46 million. These cuts have damaged the UK’s reputation and undermined development outcomes.

The new government must urgently re-evaluate the UK’s ODA budget allocation for WASH, taking the International Development Committee’s recommendation to “calculate and justify a minimum bilateral ODA percentage that it must spend on WASH to reach its development targets”. This rejuvenated WASH budget must prioritise delivery through grant financing for the poorest countries and those most offtrack in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6.

Mental health

Wellbeing has been increasingly recognised as a key marker of national progress, with many of the important indicators for national and international development being closely associated with wellbeing.

The vibrant UK civil society and academic sector in this area has collaborated closely with the UK government to build a strong case for a focus on mental health in our international development and diplomatic portfolio.

We would like to see this strengthened through:

• a ‘mental health in all development’ approach
• a renewed commitment to the aspirational and evidence-based Approach and Theory of Change to Mental Health, previously adopted by DFID/the FCDO
• allocation of adequate leadership and personnel to drive forward the mental health agenda.

Disability and development

to rebuild its reputation, the UK government must lead by example and prioritise disability rights globally. This includes championing disability inclusion at the Summit for the Future, and in-person ministerial attendance and announcements of significant new commitments at the Global Disability Summit in April 2025.

We urge the government to uphold the Disability and Rights Strategy 2022-2030 by publishing a transparent and comprehensive delivery plan. The FCDO should also implement the recommendations of, and publish a response to, the House of Commons International Development Committee report on the FCDO and disability-inclusive development.

The government must adopt participatory approaches that meaningfully engage people with disabilities and their representative organisations.

It must commit to improving the quality, disaggregation and transparency of data to enable better tracking and accountability of ODA spend and programming for persons with disabilities.

With 1 in 6 people globally having a disability, many being the most left behind and most at risk from humanitarian crisis, the UK must use its global influence to position disability inclusion as a central pillar of international efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Food security and sustainable food system

The UK government must demonstrate international commitment to tackling hunger, famine and alarming levels of food insecurity by taking a holistic food systems approach across various sectors and policy spaces.

We would like the UK government to:

1. Commit to ensuring that UK’s efforts towards new sustainable food systems approach address previously entrenched agricultural and land gender inequalities and put local partners and communities at the centre.
2. Leverage local knowledge and resources and prioritise public policies that reduce dependence on external financing and inputs to ensure the long-term sustainability and autonomy of food systems planning and implementation.
3. Recognise and prioritise a food systems approach to safeguarding food security, which would include joint action by governments (and others) on agricultural production, as well as on food loss and waste, and on diets and nutrition. This will help to build sustainable, healthy, resilient, and equitable food systems.
4. Ensure trade rules are oriented to support climate action and sustainable food systems. This will require the UK to produce a new international trade strategy to outline how this will happen.
5. Commit to mandatory human rights and environment due diligence which includes legislation on purchasing practices and a commitment to the payment of living incomes and wages. This will ensure that farmers and workers across the world that are part of agricultural supply chains receive adequate prices for their produce and can earn a living income or a living wage.

Conflict, sanctions and counter-terrorism

Conflict drives global security challenges and human suffering, while generating a huge global cost. It is thus refreshing to hear the new UK government recognise the need to enhance UK conflict prevention capabilities.

To do this, the government needs to adopt a cross-government Peace and Conflict Strategy, address the intersection of conflict and climate, restore the proportion of ODA spend on peace to 2016 levels, support inclusive, locally-led peace processes, counter disinformation and improve multilateral support for peace.

Without adequate legal safeguards, sanctions and counter-terrorism regulations negatively impact humanitarian and peacebuilding work in areas affected by conflict and insecurity. By quickly introducing into law an exception for humanitarian and peacebuilding assistance within UK’s autonomous sanctions regimes, the government would ensure alignment with UN Security Council Resolution 2664, which applied an exception to UN-related regimes, and help reduce obstacles to humanitarian and peacebuilding work. For complete alignment, a similar exception should be introduced into the Terrorism Act 2000.

In the medium term, the government should develop a common sanctions and counter-terrorism policy framework that cuts across individual department positions and interests and guides operational decisions.

INGOs continue to experience chronic difficulties with financial access to contexts where sanctions apply or proscribed groups operate – yet, often this is where the need is greatest. The government must engage financial regulators to reduce bank ‘de-risking’ of humanitarian and peacebuilding activity.

Finally, the Tri-Sector Group is the go-to forum for government, charities and financial institutions to share information and find solutions to sanctions and counter-terrorism challenges . The forum requires resources inside and outside government for it to remain effective.

Bond’s working groups are communities of practice and learning led by Bond members. Bond has over 40 working groups with over 3,000 members, each focuses on key thematic areas in the development and humanitarian sector. This blog includes contributions from the following working groups: Child Rights, UK WASH Network, Mental Health Sub-Group, Disability and Development, Food Security and Sustainable Food Systems, Conflict Policy, Sanctions and Counter-Terrorism.