Meeting Global Challenges & Making a Difference - Aligning Our International Development Policy with the Global Goals

Overview

The Scottish Government’s international development work began in 2005 with a £3 million budget for Malawi, reflecting the historic, and extensive civil society, links between Scotland and Malawi. Whilst our international development programme still has a heavy centre on Scotland’s partnership with Malawi, the programme has since grown to include six other priority countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Our International Development Fund has grown too, and we now operate with a budget of £9 million per annum. Our international development work has, however, remained faithful to its origins, working through, and continuing to support the people to people links and does not provide direct funding to governments. In November 2015, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Cooperation Agreement between the Governments of Scotland and Malaw

2015 was also a seminal year for international development in the wider global context, with the Millennium Development Goals coming to an end, replaced from 1 January 2016 by the new Global Goals – the UN agreed set of high level priorities tackle poverty and inequality from now until 2030.

In light of the key milestones such as the advent of the new Global Goals and the 10th anniversary of our international development programme, it feels timely to now consider through this consultation exercise how best we can refine our international development programme going forward. It will invite responses from International Development stakeholders as well as civil society generally, both in Scotland and overseas. We will ask respondents to consider how we work, with whom we work and where we work.

If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.  You should note that the Scottish Government intends to commission independent analysis of written consultation responses, as part of the wider consultation exercise, and will securely pass your response and Respondent Information Form to an external contractor for this purpose.

Please see the full discussion paper  below or click here to download a copy

Why your views matter

We are keen to arrive at a refreshed Scottish Government international development policy that embraces and seeks to deliver on our commitment to the Global Goals, and is in line with good development practice. We want to more carefully target and focus our International Development Fund and other related work to where we can make a real difference and most impact in relation to our budget. This means looking at: reducing the number of countries that we work in through a consideration of our future geographic focus; aiming to be more targeted in our thematic areas; and looking at a number of more practical issues around how we fund international development initiatives in future. To help us formulate our new refreshed policy, and ensure that we build upon the people-to-people basis of our development work to date, we are keen to hear views from as many different sectors and people as possible, both in Scotland and overseas.

What happens next

Thank you for taking the time to respond to the consultation exercise on the Scottish Government's International Development Policy. We are currently analysing the many responses we received and aim to publish the consultation report at the end of the summer. Until then, you can keep up to date with our work at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/International/int-dev

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form which forms part of the consultation questionnaire as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly. The Scottish Government may securely pass your response and Respondent Information Form to an external contractor for the purposes of analysing the consultation responses.