By Judith Ugwumadu | 2 February 2015

The UK’s Department for International Development has been urged to do more to coordinate policies across government to help developing nations tackle problems including tax collection and financial instability.

In a report examining the UK’s international aid spending, the House of Commons’ international development committee said this assistance remained vital to many countries, but would not enough on its own to help fragile states. 

Although the committee praised the UK’s commitment in reaching the 0.7% target for aid spending as a proportion of national income, MPs said DFID often placed too little emphasis on ensuring that its wider policies are coherent. 

It needed to ensure there was ‘coherence’ so development issues were considered in policies such as international security, climate change, and threats from disease. 

Committee chair Malcolm Bruce said aid was essential to reduce poverty and reach ambitious development and environmental goals, but needed to be matched by coordinated work across government.

Although the number of poor countries was falling, those that remain often suffer from conflict so need multiple interventions, he highlighted.

‘That is why development in the future will not just be about aid,’ he said.

‘When the government puts its mind to it, the results are impressive. The UK often leads in shaping the global agenda, as it has done for example on women and girls. But the evidence we received shows the record is patchy. 

‘We call on the government to up its game and make policy coherence a central priority. In addition, we call on the government to give greater emphasis to facilitating links between UK and developing and emerging countries.’

A DFID spokeswoman welcomed the report, saying the committee was ‘absolutely right’ to identify that there are many thing beyond traditional aid that drive development and help reduce poverty. 

‘That is why we have directed more resources to tackle these areas with the aim of ending aid dependency once and for all. 

‘We are working hard to make sure that this new approach is reflected in the next set of UN development goals.’