The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s global efforts to end extreme poverty, deliver the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) and tackle a wide range of global development challenges. The UK’s focus and international leadership on economic development is a vital part of Global Britain - harnessing the potential of new trade relationships, creating jobs and channelling investment to the world’s poorest countries. Throughout history, sustained, job-creating growth has played the greatest role in lifting huge numbers of people out of grinding poverty. This is what developing countries want and is what the international system needs to help deliver. Whilst there is an urgent need for traditional aid in many parts of the world, ultimately economic development is how we will achieve the Global Goals and help countries move beyond the need for aid.
Contribution to the Global Goals and other government commitments (achieved as at March 2018)
UK support is helping to build a more stable Afghanistan that is less dependent on external support over the long term. The UK is supporting the Afghan people by helping to provide them with greater access to healthcare, education, and safe drinking water, as well as helping to create jobs, boosting economic development, and tackling corruption. To this end, the UK has pledged to spend up to £750 million in aid to Afghanistan between 2016 and 2020, depending on security conditions and Afghan government performance.
Headline deliverables
- Economic development: We will create more than 35,000 jobs by 2023 and generate $600m of new private sector investment. We will improve land productivity and create jobs by clearing over 100 km2 of land by 2020, made unusable by mines and explosives (equivalent to over 14,000 football pitches).
- Basic services and humanitarian: We will help poor people, including girls and women, access essential services such as healthcare and education. We will help 1.7 million more people, half of whom will be women, to have access to agriculture or irrigation services by 2019. We will continue to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to an estimated 1 million people a year, including refugees or people who have fled their homes due to conflict or disasters.
- Building institutions: We will support the development of more transparent and accountable institutions through, for example, support for the delivery of upcoming elections and electoral reform, and supporting the government’s ability to fight high level corruption. UK support has helped the Afghan government establish the Anti-Corruption Justice Centre to investigate and bring to trial high level corruption cases. We will continue to support efforts to address corruption and to encourage greater transparency.