RIU Lessons mirror new UK Government thinking

2 July 2010

As you will probably be aware, following elections in May we have a new government in the UK. For the first time since the Second World War, the country is being led by a coalition government in which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats share power.

Many issues separated the three major parties in the run-up to the elections and, for the first time in this country, we enjoyed some robust live televised debates involving the three party leaders. But on one issue they stood shoulder to shoulder: despite everyone acknowledging that major cuts in government spending would be needed to tackle the UK's economic situation, all the major parties agreed that development assistance should not be cut.

Election promises are, however, easily broken. It was reassuring therefore when the prime minister, David Cameron, was asked about this during prime minister's questions in the House of Commons on 23 June. In reply to a question from Pamela Nash, the Labour MP for the Scottish constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, and the youngest MP in the House, he said:

"She is quite right to talk about the millennium development goals and aid spending. It is good that it is common cause across the House of Commons that, despite the difficult decisions that we will have to take, we should meet the target of 0.7% of gross national income. We are committed to doing that, which means that we can continue to support the poorest people in the poorest countries. We will be addressing such issues this weekend at the G8 in Canada."

So, at a time when many ministries are preparing for swingeing 25% cuts, Mr Cameron is committed to increasing UK development assistance.

Meanwhile, on the same day in a speech at the United Nation's Global Compact, the new International Development Minister, Alan Duncan, called on the private sector to change its relationship with the world's poorest people. He suggested that poor people should be viewed as potential consumers, producers and suppliers rather than just as recipients of aid, and that businesses investing in the poorest countries should look to local communities to fill vacancies and supply goods and services. "Private enterprise is an absolutely crucial partner in our battle against global poverty," said Mr Duncan at the UN in New York.

We hope that Mr Duncan and his colleagues will be able to come and see some of the private sector-led initiatives supported by RIU that are doing just this - providing the goods and services needed by poor people to help them improve their farming practices, and linking poor farmers to markets for their produce.

A recent paper written by Jeroen Dijkman of the RIU Central Research Team coined the term 'Bottom Billion Businesses' to describe what he suggests is a new class of enterprise developing in Africa. Jeroen writes:

"Such Bottom Billion Businesses may well be starting to rewrite the commerce development handbooks in Africa. Results obtained in the RIU country programmes in funding the activities of these nascent groups are indicative of new avenues where development donors may want to direct their investments to stimulate rural innovation."

I have always thought that the private sector was the key to getting research into use and I am delighted that we are now amassing compelling evidence and useful lessons to guide policy and practice in this area.

The head of DFID, the International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, recently said:

"We need a fundamental change of direction - we need to focus on results and outcomes, not just inputs. Aid spending decisions should be made on the basis of evidence, not guesswork."

We now need to have a concerted effort to share the evidence and lessons emerging from RIU with DFID and other investors; this is exactly what RIU was established to do.