UK Approach to Democracy and Human Rights Review
Laure-Hélène Piron, The Policy Practice Director, is leading a review of the UK aid's approach to democracy and human rights since 2015 on behald of the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI).
Promoting and protecting democracy and human rights overseas is a long-standing UK government commitment, reiterated in the 2022 UK government’s strategy for international development and the 2021 Integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy. In 2015, for the first time, democracy and human rights became globally agreed development objectives, not only through SDG 16, but also as part of commitments to gender equality, combatting inequalities and leaving no one behind. In addition to the SDGs, the UK government is also the initiator and/or an active member of a range of global coalitions, from the Community of Democracies to the Open Government Partnership.
The UK’s democracy and human rights portfolio includes both in-country and centrally managed programmes. The purpose of the review is to explore how effectively the UK aid programme has responded to the emergence of new threats to democracy and human rights on the global stage.
The review will cover UK aid policy, influencing and programmes on these issues between 2015 and 2021. The review will focus on policies and programmes aimed at promoting and protecting democracy and human rights from threats, including to civil and political rights. It will also explore how aid policies and programmes have taken into account the core principles of equality and non-discrimination, transparency, accountability and participation. Through country case studies, it will examine how UK aid has considered economic, social and cultural rights, and the rights of individuals belonging to ‘at-risk groups’ – that is, specific social groups which have been excluded or persecuted (such as LGBTQI+, religious or ethno-linguistic minorities).
The review questions are:
- Does the UK have a credible approach to using aid to counter threats to democracy and human rights in developing countries?
- How coherent is the UK’s approach to countering threats to democracy and human rights?
- How well has the UK contributed to countering threats to democracy and human rights?
The approach paper can be found here.
The review will be published by the end of 2022.
Political economy analysis for climate action training course running from 31 October 2023
The Policy Practice is delighted to announce a new short online course focussing on the Political Economy of Climate Action. This course explains how political economy analysis can be used to understand the challenge of action on climate change and to design more effective interventions. The course will consist of seven, 2-hour online sessions from 31 October to 27 November 2023. For more information and to register please click below
Why governments drag their feet on climate action - and what to do about it. New blog from TPP Director Neil McCulloch
In March 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a Synthesis report of its huge sixth assessment report, pointing out that greenhouse gas emissions must fall dramatically – starting immediately – for us to have any chance of keeping the global temperature within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100. The response to this depressing reality from many advocating urgent action to tackle climate is that we must try harder. That failing to do so will result in catastrophe. This blog argues that this is the wrong approach. That the rallying cry to keep on pushing forward is unlikely to work unless we have a better understanding of the political barriers to doing so.
Q&A with Dr, Neil McCulloch - written by Aia Brnic (IISD) and Neil McCulloch
Neil was interviewed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) about the controversial fuel subsidy reforms that have just taken place in Nigeria.
This article first appeared on the IISD website - see link below: