Boris Johnson’s foreign aid department merger will usher in a return to the shady era of ‘aid for trade’

We once set the gold standard for government development agencies. Thanks to the prime minister, that legacy is now at risk

Today’s announcement by Boris Johnson is an act of political vandalism. Stripping the Department for International Development (DfID) of its independence and folding it into the Foreign and Commonwealth office (FCO) is a perverse attack on people in poverty, and an undermining of our standing in the world.

The timing of this decision feels particularly brutal as the world is reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which is killing hundreds of thousands of people and plunging some of the most marginalised communities deeper into poverty. Now is surely not the time to abandon some of those who need us the most. It certainly feels like a slap in the face of all those who have been raising their voices about systemic economic and social injustice. As Covid-19 has shown, and as we know through our work at Christian Aid, it is black and brown people who are most affected by poverty, lack of healthcare and the climate crisis.

The idea of bringing the British aid budget under Foreign Office control has been floated for months in think tank papers and media reports. Nothing during that period has strengthened what was always a flimsy case. Aid spent by DfID is more transparent and effective than aid spent in FCO. The independent aid transparency index rates DfID as the third-best aid agency internationally, while the FCO is sixth from bottom in a field of 45.

DFID has generated goodwill and soft power for the UK in a volatile and changing world and started to reshape Britain’s relationship with its former empire for the better. And an independent DfID helps to ensure that when the UK shows up at the UN and the World Bank and IMF, poverty eradication is a serious consideration in the positions taken by the government.

All this is now at risk, and the timing could hardly be worse. In the face of Covid-19, extreme poverty is rising sharply for the first time in a generation. And as the UK prepares to chart a new course outside of the EU, the dismantling of an independent DfID risks showing the UK to be parochial and narrowly self-interested, as it subordinates its aid to commercial, trading and diplomatic goals.

I haven’t seen the same sense of self-interest in the UK public, who continue to generously support important causes, demonstrating a deep care for neighbours near and far. And it’s not a self-interest I have seen as I have travelled across the continents in recent years, witnessing the deep professional collaboration of organisation in partnership with DfID.

As Christian Aid’s chair Rowan Williams said during the last general election campaign: “We need an intelligent and independent Department for International Development embedded in a government that thinks about long-term global stability. There is not much point in a development programme that coexists – for example – with selling arms to states pursuing aggressive and brutalising wars with their neighbours.”

DfID has set the international standard for government development agencies. That legacy is now at risk. I don’t want the UK to return to the era of tied aid, and of scandals like the Pergau dam. I want it to build on the powerful contribution DfID has already made to tackling extreme poverty.

We need DfID to continue to help the world navigate through the global crisis that we’re in. There is no justifiable development or humanitarian rationale for this move at this time.

Amanda Khozi Mukwashi is chief executive of Christian Aid