Weekly Action - 14 August 2023 - Development White Paper
Development White Paper
The UK government is refreshing its approach to overseas development. It has published a White Paper, and is consulting on what its priorities for international development should be. This week Arise’s weekly action focuses on how we can all feed in to that consultation to shape UK aid for the better, whilst Arise’s weekly blog takes a wider look at the wider role of overseas aid. The UK’s approach to international development does badly need a reset. After many years when the UK was an internationally recognised leader in the field, in 2021 the proportion of Gross National Income (GNI) that the UK spends in international aid dropped from 0.7% (the internationally agreed standard that the UK has long championed) to 0.5%. And the aid that remains has been increasingly spent on supporting refugees at home in the UK and furthering UK foreign policy interests, rather than being purely focused on reducing poverty in the world’s poorest countries, as it should be.
UK aid has had a literally lifesaving impact for millions of people around the world over many years. To take just one example, more than 150,000 people, including many malnourished children, in Chad have been provided with emergency food supplies in recent years. Cash assistance has also been given to over 1,600 households in the country, enabling them to purchase food and building materials, and clean safe water has been provided for 10,500 people. More than 10,000 people received protective clothing and medical kits to reduce the spread of Covid-19 during the pandemic.[1] In recent months UK aid has supported flood victims in DR Congo, Rwanda and Pakistan, immunizations against deadly tropical diseases, earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, and people suffering drought in East Africa amongst many other areas.
Reducing poverty around the world
As Christians, we know that God has a special care for those suffering in extreme poverty, and wants to see all cared for and their poverty ended. As the Psalms say, “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry … The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (Pslam 146: 7 – 9). The White Paper consultation is an important opportunity for us as Christians to call for the right priorities in the UK’s approach to international development.
Arise’s 4 Shifts Report and Campaign looks at the lessons from the Bible, and at what has worked in the past, to successfully lift nations out of poverty, and at how this can be done in an environmentally sustainable way in the twenty-first century. It finds that aid from developed nations like the UK is an important temporary boost to support low-income countries as they develop themselves, until they can move beyond the need for aid. For that 4 essential shifts are needed. 1) Nations need to develop strong and fair national economies to create jobs and wealth. 2) They can then tax these to provide social spending and basic services like healthcare and education, to ensure all benefit, not just the richest in society. 3) Going forward these economies need to be powered by 100% clean renewable energy to avoid global climate change. 4) They also need to be circular economies that reuse precious natural resources rather than overconsume and dump them.
Also crucial to development is seeing better governance, more democracy, reduced corruption and improved human rights in many developing countries. The most successful and sustained way of achieving this is through empowered citizens holding their governments to account. Supporting such bottom-up Reform Movements (and the Christians that are so often at the heart of them) is one of three key focus campaigns for Arise. It should also be a top priority for the UK’s overseas development aid.
Will you take action this week and call for the right priorities in the UK’s approach to overseas development?
Take Action
Speak out in advocacy
Follow this link to have your say and input into the UK government’s Development White Paper consultation. Keep your answers clear, simple, short, from the heart and in your own words. It shouldn’t take long. You must submit your ideas by 16 September 2023. Consider advocating for the issues Arise believes should be top priorities as set out in our 4 Shifts and Reform Movements campaigns, and adding links to the Arise Manifesto in your answers.
Pray
Pray for all those living in extreme poverty. Pray their nations will develop, creating booming green economies, jobs, good wages, and key public services like education and healthcare to lift them permanently out of poverty. Pray the UK will immediately scale up overseas aid back to 0.7% of GNI and focus this entirely on reducing poverty.
Give
Give to Christian organisations like Christian Aid, Cafod, Tearfund or World Vision who do crucial work supporting the most marginalised and reducing poverty in countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Practical Action
If you are from outside of the UK, help spread the message further by getting in touch with us at info@ariseuk.org and letting us know if you would be interested in helping set up a branch of Arise in your country.
Ethical Consumption
Support developing nation economies by buying products and services with the Fairtrade mark, where a much higher proportion of your money goes to producers in the developing world.
Encourage us and others by letting us know what actions you have taken – message us at info@ariseuk.org, or via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Find out more
It’s great to take this action as individual Christians, but even better to come together with others to pray, discuss, worship, learn, have fun and take action together. Contact Arise if you are interested in joining or starting a local Arise group in your church or area. If you are already in an Arise group, take this action to your wider church, and get them all to do it too.
Find out more about how God is at work in the world, and the role we all have to play in that work, in the Arise Manifesto.
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[1] UK aid support vulnerable people in Chad using millions of pounds recovered during corruption case, Gov.UK, (29 Nov 2021), https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-aid-supports-vulnerable-people-in-chad-using-millions-of-pounds-recovered-during-corruption-case