The Development Studies Association, the UK association for all those who research, teach and study global development issues, and heads of UK development studies centres, calls on the Government to reconsider its proposal to merge the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 

As Covid-19 underscores our global interdependence, it is clear that the good of the UK will not be served by narrow conceptions of national self-interest. The pandemic has shown that our global health system is only as strong as its weakest link.  Now is the time for deepening and broadening global co-operation, not retreating behind a quick-win nationalism that trades long term security for short-term gains.  DFID’s focus on directing UK aid towards poverty reduction is a critical asset, which has both brought important relief to some of the world’s most vulnerable people, and also earned Britain global recognition as an able and trusted development partner. Parliament’s own International Development Committee only last week highly commended DFID’s achievements and called for it to remain as a standalone department.

At a time when the Government has committed itself to ‘follow the science’, we call on the Government to listen to the combined global development expertise that our Association represents and reverse this decision which has such potential to harm some of the world’s poorest people, further undermine the autonomy of DFID and the effectiveness of UK aid, reduce our influence on the world stage, and leave our country ultimately more exposed to global fragilities and uncertainties. 

Sarah White, (outgoing) President of Development Studies Association, University of Bath

Sam Hickey (incoming) President of Development Studies Association, University of Manchester

Dan Brockington and Dorothea Kleine, Sheffield Institute for International Development

Laura Camfield, School of International Development, University of East Anglia

Grace Carswell, Department of International Development, University of Sussex

James Copestake, Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath

Susan Fairley Murray, Department of International Development, King’s College London

Jonathan Fisher, International Development, University of Birmingham

Jean Grugel, Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre, University of York

Claire Heffernan, London International Development Centre

Zoe Marriage, Department of Development Studies; Hannah Bargawi and Elisa Van Department ofEconomics,SOAS University of London

Khalid Nadvi, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester

Peter Robbins, Development Policy and Practice, Open University

Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Department of International Development, University of Oxford

Ken Shadlen, Department of International Development, LSE

Mei Trueba, Global Health department, Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Michael Walls and Julio Dávila, The Barlett Development Planning Unit, University College London

International Development cluster, University of Edinburgh