The Department For International Development
What is DFID?
DFID: End Aid for Oil
Ben Miller
The Department for International Development (DFID) is “the part of the UK Government that manages Britain’s aid to poor countries and works to get rid of extreme poverty” (DFID website). The current Secretary of State for International Development is Douglas Alexander, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South.
DFID splits expenditure between direct support to other countries, and giving aid through multilateral organisations such as the World Bank. In 2005/06 57% of DFID expenditure was bilateral and 38% was multilateral.
The contribution that the UK gives to the World Bank makes it one of the top five shareholders in the Bank, contributing around 5% of total World Bank funds. This entitles the UK to appoint its own Executive Director to the Board. DFID and the Treasury are the departments which instruct the Executive Director, so DFID can exert significant influence on the Bank’s decisions.
Why target DFID?
Public support for fossil fuel extraction is particularly important to the oil and gas industry not only because of the money provided for specific projects, but because of the political support, technical assistance and advice that governments and the World Bank provide to support oil and gas development. The use of public funds also plays a crucial role to decrease the risk for private investors and oil companies.
DFID is not the only government department to support the use of taxpayers’ money to subsidise the oil and gas industry, for example, the Export Credit Guarantee Department underwrites oil and gas projects around the world. However, there is such a massive contradiction between DFID’s mandate and their support for oil and gas that we have picked them as our prime target.
Change in DFID’s policy and practice could have knock-on effects at the World Bank and other international institutions, as well as on other government departments in the UK.
The Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are 8 goals set by the 192 member states of the UN, which they have agreed to achieve by 2015. One of the eight goals is to “Ensure Environmental Sustainability”. While this is a fairly ambiguous term, funding fossil fuel projects which will ensure the destruction on the environment over the coming years is clearly at odds with this goal and the principles of the MDGs.
It is predicted that the impact of climate change will be to slow or even reverse the progress towards all the MDGs.
Jargon Buster
Bilateral aid is assistance provided directly from one country to another, so what it is spent on is determined only by the donor and recipient country.
Multilateral aid is provided through international institutions, which means that all the donors have to agree on priorities for spending.
