This House of Lords Library briefing provides background information on the UK’s ODA budget, surveys the development of government policy on the evaluation and measurement of development activity and suggests sources of further reading which provide information on the impact of specific aid initiatives.
Measuring the Impact of the UK’s Development Aid Budget (2 MB , PDF)
The UK has spent at least 0.7 percent of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA) since 2013. The Department for International Development has focused on strengthening the evaluation of projects and programmes funded by the aid budget in recent years, and the Government more broadly has indicated its commitment to monitoring the outcomes of its bilateral aid programmes and the performance of its multilateral aid partners. In addition to this governmental self-assessment activity, the ODA budget is subject to oversight by several bodies with a monitoring remit.
This House of Lords Library briefing provides background information on the UK’s ODA budget, surveys the development of government policy on the evaluation and measurement of development activity and suggests sources of further reading which provide information on the impact of specific aid initiatives.
Measuring the Impact of the UK’s Development Aid Budget (2 MB , PDF)
This briefing is the fifth of a series on the post-war history of the UK economy. The series proceeds decade-by-decade from the 1950s onwards, providing an overview of the key macroeconomic developments of each decade. This fifth briefing looks at the 1990s. In this decade the UK economy settled into a period of low inflation and steady growth; however, living standards growth was lower and more regionally concentrated than in previous decades.
The Budget Responsibility Bill would require ministers to request an assessment from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for every major fiscal announcement and give the OBR the power to decide to publish one if the minister failed to request it. This follows the September 2022 ‘mini-budget’. The statement included plans that would have resulted in a projected £45bn reduction in tax income. It did not have an accompanying OBR assessment.
In November 2023, the Harrington review of foreign direct investment made recommendations about how the UK could attract more cross-border investment. The new Labour government has said tackling barriers to investment is a priority.
