Voices DfID’s demise at the hands of Boris Johnson is another nail in the coffin of global Britain I was a special advisor to Clare Short when the Department for International Development was ...

DFID’s role in shaping debates on development was crucial in terms of providing a necessary balance to the neoliberal tilt of the World Bank. The merger, however, was long in coming.

The international community – both government and civil society – will expect, and require, no less, in line with DFID’s track record, and the true ideals of ‘Global Britain’.

But his fear is that the new department may comprise the worst FCO short termism with Dfid's bureaucratic caution. To avoid this “worst case” happening it will be important to try and allay the fears ...

In 2020, a few months after the merger of DFID with the Foreign Office, Britain’s aid budget was cut from 0.7% of gross national income, the highest in the G7 group of developed nations, to 0.5%.

To its credit, DFID’s strategy acknowledges this. “Too often, data is not presented in an understandable way that enables citizens to find, interpret and use it”, it argues.

Dfid has that but the Foreign Office doesn’t,” he said. “There’s a big question mark over whose systems will take precedence in this new organisation,” he said.

SIR – It is perhaps worth remembering that 99.3 per cent of British GDP is not spent on overseas aid. Andrew Jones Guildford, Surrey SIR – The merger of Dfid with the Foreign and Commonwealth ...