Historic elections and disappointing budgets: politics in 2024

For a long time now, it seems that every year has been a ‘big year’ for the politics of international development, and 2024 was not an exception.

Here, we look over some of the key moments across the year in politics that helped shape the international development agenda.

General election

The biggest moment of 2024, and perhaps of the decade, was the unexpected general election held just five months ago in July. With most of the political commentariat expecting an Autumn, and maybe even winter, election, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprised even some of his own MPs and called a July election.

The polls predicted correctly, and we saw a Labour landslide, winning 412 seats (411 when you take the speaker out of the total), and installing Keir Starmer as the first Labour Prime Minister since Gordon Brown in 2010. Along with a new government, there was an incredible turnover of MPs, with a record 335 being completely new to the role.

Ahead of polling day, the political parties published their manifestos and with them, their promises on international development and foreign policy. In a welcome move, all four major political parties committed to solid, progressive international development policies. Which leads me onto…

The Bond Manifesto

Although not a political moment per say, towards the end of 2023 and throughout the first 4 months of 2024, hundreds of Bond members, stakeholders, networks and allies came together to discuss what the sector, and, more importantly, the communities we work with needed from the next government. Across multiple meetings, workshops, and planning days, Bond was able to compile one of the most comprehensive policy proposals based on evidence and insight from experts across the development sector. And to top it all off, we launched it in March in a packed room in parliament, with guest speakers from the major political parties.

But just having a document isn’t enough, if it doesn’t lead to change then it’s simply words on a page. After the launch, Bond worked with MPs, activists, and the political parties themselves, to ensure that this manifesto was able to have influence ahead of the general election.

The budget

It was hoped that Labour would use its first budget to turbocharge its commitment to international development seen in their manifesto and start to address some major concerns of the NGO sector, most notably the use of the aid budget to support refugees in the UK. Specific categories of this support to refugees can be reported as Official Development Assistance (ODA) over the first 12 months refugees from low- and middle-income countries are in the donor refugee.

Under the previous government, the UK rapidly increased the amount of the UK aid budget it used for these costs, far exceeding most other countries (with a higher level of costs reported by the UK per refugee). Bond and its members advocated for the new government to reduce the amount of the UK aid budget used for these refugee costs and to find the money for this vulnerable group from somewhere else. But they have so far refused. They are still trying to reduce this figure by processing asylum cases as quickly as they can, with some success, but this progress is slow, and the need is urgent.

A return to 0.7?

It’s been over three years since the Conservative government used questionable methods in parliament to force a vote to reduce the UK aid and development budget from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to just 0.5% of GNI. Despite Labour towing the same line as the Conservatives before the election that they would ‘wait until the fiscal situation allows’ before returning to the target, it was hoped that the party would at least set out a realistic timeframe for the return to 0.7, or revisit the ‘fiscal rules’ set by the previous Conservative government to make them a bit more achievable and realistic.

Unfortunately, Labour did neither. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, did change the overall fiscal rules for managing the budget, a move welcomed by many including the IMF. But, despite these changes, the Treasury made a decision to keep the old Conservative fiscal rules for the return to 0.7 in place. If the Chancellor had applied her new fiscal rules to 0.7, then we could have seen a return to the target by as soon as 2027/28 – a move that would have pumped billions back into development, helping to create stability and reassurance to the rest of the world. Instead, by keeping the old rules in place for 0.7, whilst changing the overall rules to free up spending, experts think that it could be at least a decade until we see a return to the target.

But IDA was very welcome news

Towards the end of November, the UK government announced a 40% increase to the World Bank International Development Association (IDA), the fund for countries with the lowest income, pledging £1.98 billion over three years. Whilst this is, of course, welcome news, there is concern that such a large commitment under a constrained budget could lead to trade-offs.

2025 and beyond

There’s so much happening in 2025, with funding replenishments aplenty. It will be critical to see how the government responds to some really big global moments when it will be challenged to show global leadership on resourcing and helping to secure ambitious global action.

Whether the UK can play this role and help to resource the response to new and evolving challenges without cutting other important areas of development spending will be shaped by the outcome of the next year’s three-year spending review, which will conclude by June 2025.

This spending review will set budget allocations for each department for the next three years, cementing their priorities ahead of the next general election, due in 2029. Ahead of this spending review, Bond and members will be making the case once again for a progressive compassionate and ambitiously-funded development agenda that puts people and planet first. This should involve beginning to increase the UK ODA budget above 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) and starting the journey towards returning it to 0.7% of GNI, as well as ensuring this spending is refocused on overseas challenges.