David Cameron is marking his return to frontline politics by saying he wants to unlock billions of dollars for foreign aid over the next decade, as part of a “moral mission” to help the world’s poorest people. In a remarkable change of tone for a government that closed the Department for International Development and slashed the foreign aid budget, the former prime minister is to say he wants to push for the restoration of aid’s status in British foreign policy. Cameron, who was appointed foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak on Monday in an astonishing political comeback, is to write in a foreword to a new international development white paper that foreign aid is even more vital, but more difficult than when he was last in office. The internationalist tone will probably infuriate the Tory right, already angry that Cameron’s return signals a rush to the political centre ground, while his failure to formally commit extra public money to aid will dismay many charities. Cameron will say that the UK must find fresh ways to meet the UN’s sustainable development goals, including ending global hunger by 2030.
He describes the UN goals as a remarkable achievement, adding “crucially, we made these promises to every country and person on the planet – nobody would be left behind”. The development white paper is to be published on Monday as a global food summit is held in London. Officials say Cameron took the draft white paper home in his ministerial box on his first day in office, reading it overnight. In office Cameron made aid a central component of “compassionate Conservatism”, committing his government to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid, and co-chairing a UN panel on extreme poverty that led in 2015 to the 17 UN sustainable development goals. The white paper focuses on new policy approaches and ways of leveraging extra state and private funds for aid, which Cameron says could “unlock hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade”. It does not change the economic preconditions set by Sunak for a return to spending 0.7% of GDP, after the aid budget was cut to 0.5% in 2020. The foreign secretary will say the UK needs to move away from the old donor-recipient model towards partnerships of mutual respect, in which low- and middle-income countries have a greater say in global institutions. “Development cannot be a closed shop, where we try to help other countries and communities without heeding their vision for the future,” he writes. The white paper has been deliberately structured by its lead author, development minister Andrew Mitchell, to go through to 2030 in the hope that Labour would pick up its themes in what Mitchell describes as “the highly unlikely event” of the Conservatives losing the next election. Due to Covid, reduced budgets, conflict and a decline in multilateralism, Mitchell says the world is woefully off-track reaching the UN sustainable development goals, and says new approaches are required, including providing public sector guarantees to mobilise private sector money. Mitchell told the Guardian: “Where we are sweating balance sheets, releasing billions of dollars of guarantees and issuing special drawing rights to create £5.3bn of extra money, the argument whether you are spending 0.5% or 0.7 % of GDP on aid is of interest but arguably less relevant since the additional mechanisms we have found to put more money into climate finance and adaptation are more important”. An official summary of the white paper, written by film director and aid advocate Richard Curtis, argues: “It is no longer possible, if it ever was, for a country to determine its future alone. Climate change does not respect national boundaries, nor do pandemics. Conflicts are becoming more numerous, frequent, and longer lasting. War in one country can affect security thousands of miles away. Poverty, conflict, and climate change often go hand in hand and drive flows of refugees.” The white paper will urge more countries to follow the UK plan for debt repayments to be immediately paused when vulnerable countries are hit by extreme weather events or health emergencies, something Mitchell describes as a simple innovation that can make a huge difference. It backs more rapid restructuring of unsustainable debt saying recent efforts have taken too long. Zambia, for instance, waited more than 18 months between staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund and an agreement among official creditors on a debt treatment. According to the UN, 3.3 billion people now live in countries where debt interest payments are greater than expenditure on health or education. The white paper will call for measures to minimise the risk of holdouts to debt restructuring by bondholders. In a major reform, British Investment International (BII), the UK’s large development investment arm, will be required to spend a minimum of half of its annual investment in low-income countries following criticisms that some of the investments have been poorly targeted at poverty alleviation. In 2022, BII investments generated £1bn ($1.3bn) of funding from elsewhere, and the businesses it backed employed 1 million people and paid $1.5bn in taxes. In a bid to prevent humanitarian disasters, as well as alleviate them, ministers will propose a minimum of 15% of UK humanitarian spending – currently £1bn a year – to go on better preparation and adaptation.