Policy paper

UK–Pan Africa region development partnership summary, July 2023

Published 17 July 2023

Introduction

The Strategy for International Development (IDS) places development at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy. It sets out a new approach to development, anchored in patient, long-term partnerships tailored to the needs of the countries we work with, built on mutual accountability and transparency. This approach goes beyond aid and brings the combined power of the UK’s global economic, scientific, security and diplomatic strengths to our development partnerships. Our 4 priorities are to deliver honest, reliable investment, provide women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed, step up our life-saving humanitarian work, and take forward our work on climate change, nature, and global health. The Integrated Review Refresh (IR23) reiterates that sustainable development is central to UK foreign policy and sets out how the UK will go further and faster on development to reduce poverty and reinvigorate progress towards the SDGs. This Development Partnership Summary details how the IDS and IR23 will be put into practice with Africa through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Pan Africa Department’s regional programming.

Regional context

By 2030, one in 5 of the world’s population will be African. The continent will play an increasingly important role in shaping global dynamics. Geostrategic competition in Africa will intensify over the next decade. This competition will also shape – and be shaped by – the actions of African actors. By 2030, extreme poverty is projected to become increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the 2022 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, which uses health, education, and standard of living indicators to measure levels of deprivation, nearly 48% (579 million) of people who are poor globally live in the region. Many African countries are already suffering from the long-term economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Almost half of sub-Saharan African countries are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress. Poor infrastructure, a weakly developed private sector, and barriers to trade continue to limit the potential for economic growth, investment, and job creation. Africa reports the heaviest burden of public health emergencies globally, with more than 100 major public health events annually. A child born in sub-Saharan Africa is 10 times more likely to die in their first month than a child born in a high-income country. Over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 are out of school, with girls faring worse. Over half the number of people globally who require humanitarian assistance and protection are found in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa has 5 of the 10 least-peaceful countries globally and African countries continue to be impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, compounding the effects of instability, conflict, and food insecurity. Sub-Saharan Africans are amongst the least responsible for causing climate change, but many are expected to be the most vulnerable to its impacts. Increasingly frequent and severe droughts and floods are driving new patterns of displacement and leading to greater numbers of people facing acute food insecurity outcomes.

Adapting to address these trends is vital for our long-term interests. African countries are vital for our ambitions to build an open and stable international order, and key to addressing global objectives on climate, security, democracy and governance, women’s empowerment and girls’ education, economic partnerships, and effective humanitarian preparedness and responses. Our focus will be on patiently investing in long-term and mutually beneficial partnerships. We will play to our strengths, drawing on all available tools. In line with IR23, Pan Africa Department will focus on developing stronger bonds regionally, defined by a greater appreciation of the needs and perspectives of our key African partners, as we seek to build long-term ties across shared interests.

Pan Africa Department has a central role in delivering the UK Government’s vision and priorities as set out in IR23, and the IDS. We will help deliver sustainable development, a key UK priority, and reinvigorate progress towards reaching the SDGs. We will lead the shaping and delivery of strategic partnerships, programme investments and policy on cross-border and multi-country approaches to development and humanitarian assistance as a key part of a coherent UK foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Working with local and regional institutions, civil society, and governments, along with UK posts, across sub-Saharan Africa, we will build strong country-level partnerships and effective global alliances, helping to build countries’ resilience and empower people.

Pan Africa Department has delivered significant impact across the IDS and African Partner priorities. In particular, we have: stepped up our work on trade and food security for the region, helping to promote intra-African trade through our support to the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), supporting increase trade, productivity and investment in the agriculture sector, and engaging at Heads of State level at key African events (such as the Dakar 2 Summit on food sovereignty and resilience); played a lead role in convening the South Africa Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), leading to commitments from British International Investment (BII), the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), and the African Development Bank (AfDB); Supported 730,000 people to access electricity in hard-to-reach areas across Southern, Central and West Africa. We led the Congo Basin Spotlight at COP26 (coordinating $1.5 billion donor commitments to the Congo Basin Pledge) and will now take a leadership role by chairing the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) and the Central Africa Forest Initiative (CAFI). We have supported 9.5 million women to use modern methods of contraception, and we anticipate our financial year 2022 to 2023 programming alone will avert more than 3,300 maternal deaths and prevent over 405,000 unsafe abortions.

Through local Civil Society Organisation-led sensitisation and awareness campaigns, we reached 1,781,000 people across Uganda, Chad, Mali, Cote D’Ivoire and Cameroon with life-saving vaccines. In 2022, the UK was the fourth largest humanitarian donor in the region and, between 2019 and 2023, Pan Africa Department’s humanitarian programmes are on track to reach over 7.7 million people. We have also supported the work of the African Union (AU) work on upstream peace, security, and governance – including on elections observation, mediation, and conflict early warning.

Why and how: the UK’s development offer with Africa through Pan Africa Department’s regional programming

Pan Africa Department will work to deliver the UK Government’s vision as set out in IR23. Projections show that the world will not achieve the SDGs by 2030 and that sub-Saharan Africa is most off track. Our focus will be on investing in long-term and mutually beneficial partnerships that will help accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs. We will play to our strengths, drawing on all available tools, including diplomatic, economic, development, defence, and security. Our partnerships with African countries, as well as local and regional institutions, will focus on tackling cross-border issues to help deliver a freer, safer, healthier, more prosperous, and greener continent. We will work to support the Foreign Secretary and Minister for Development and Africa on their Africa priorities and ambitions through 6 priority areas:

Economic partnerships

Our support to trade and investment in Africa includes support to the AfCFTA, which will help the world’s largest trading area finalise key negotiations between member states and move the agreement into operation. The Africa Food Trade and Resilience programme is working to build the resilience of food systems across the region, which will help to address some of the priorities set out at the Dakar 2 ‘Feed Africa’ Summit in January 2024. We will also facilitate investment into Africa by supporting engagement with BII and British Investments Partnership (BIP) tools across Africa as well as supporting delivery of the UK-Africa Investment Summit in April 2024.

Cleaner, greener planet

Climate and environment-based threats exist within countries and across borders. Through the Africa Regional Climate and Nature (ARCAN) programme we will support African countries to tackle the most important causes and impacts of climate change under 5 pillars: water, nature, weather, energy, and climate finance/policy. As part of this, we will strengthen resilience to climate change by improving climate information services, including providing 3 million people with improved early warning systems. In the Congo Basin, our support will help protect 5 million hectares of forest and improve incomes for more than 50,000 producers. ARCAN will also catalyse investment from the public and private sectors to help governments integrate renewable energy into national grids.

Women and girls, global health and human development

Building on the success of the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme, its successor WISH Dividend will deliver integrated, inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services. It will reach the poorest women and girls, adolescents, and people with disabilities, giving them greater voice, choice, and control over their SRHR. Through programming, influencing, and innovation, we will strengthen health security capabilities and improve countries’ capacity to prevent, detect and respond to disease outbreaks. We will work with partners to shape a global health architecture that it is more responsive to the needs of African countries.

Humanitarian

Through the Africa Humanitarian Response Fund (AHRF) II, we will support early warning systems and humanitarian responses, challenging the humanitarian system to deliver and supporting responses to sudden onset or unforeseen crises that are regional or occur in countries where there is no existing FCDO humanitarian presence, whilst providing assistance to selected countries experiencing protracted crises. Beyond programming, Pan Africa Department will continue to drive the coordination of our wider humanitarian work across the region and generate analysis and advice on emerging risk areas.

Democracy and governance

Pan Africa Department provides support on governance and democracy to countries across the region, working through our networks and programmatic interventions. We will align with the new open society and human rights strategy in key areas such as institutions, transparency and accountability (including illicit finance), human rights, and global governance. Our programmes will also support AU mediation, stabilisation, and elections objectives across Africa, and we will support the AU and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in pressing for peaceful, legitimate, and inclusive transitions in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Chad.

Defence and security partnerships

We will deliver analysis, support UK Government policy development and programmatic delivery in support of peace and security on the continent. We will continue to build our relationship with the AU on these issues.

Who we work with

Pan Africa Department is committed to a long-term and sustained UK effort to build balanced and mutually beneficial relationships with a wide range of African countries and future powers. We work with local and regional institutions, African governments, civil society actors, and the UK’s network of posts across Africa to build strong, country-level partnerships and effective global alliances. Our partnership approach will help build countries’ resilience and empower people, and deliver our humanitarian, environmental, and developmental goals.

We will deepen partnerships with African regional institutions where our interests align and we can add value, strengthening their delivery and enhancing collaboration. These include the AU (notably the African Union Commission (AUC), Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the AfCFTA Secretariat), Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), AfDB, and regional economic communities. On economic partnerships, we will continue to work with institutions such as BII and PIDG as part of BIP, as well as collaborate with a range of donors working in sectors such as food and agriculture, where we have an established partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

We will work with global health institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to strengthen global health architecture. We also work closely with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and AfDB to ensure development progress in Africa, including on climate where we will promote improved climate risk analysis and Paris Alignment in all Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). We will work with a range of donors, partners, and civil society actors – both internationally and globally – to promote the health, safety, inclusion, and empowerment of women. Our flagship climate programme ARCAN will work with key partners focusing on energy transition (WB and AfDB), water resource management (WB), protecting forests (CAFI), improving adaptation outcomes in infrastructure and climate finance (AfDB and Global Centre on Adaptation), and improving weather and climate information (UK Met Office). To preserve the Congo Basin forests, we will lead initiatives that ensure cooperation and coordination between donors, central African governments, and regional bodies.

We will leverage our bilateral presence and global partnerships to support more effective, inclusive, coordinated, and prioritised humanitarian responses in sub-Saharan Africa, championing protection of civilians, humanitarian access and improved compliance with international humanitarian law, refugee law, and guiding principles on internal displacement in sub-Saharan Africa. We will leverage Pan Africa Department’s expertise and programming to ensure it also supports delivery of the UK’s objectives at posts across Africa.

Key programmes

Pan Africa Department’s top programmes by budget in financial year 2023 to 2024 are expected to be:

Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) and WISH Dividend: £19.2 million in financial year 2023 to 2024

The UK’s flagship SRHR programme in Africa, WISH – and its successor WISH Dividend – supports women to safely plan their pregnancies and improve their sexual and reproductive health. It delivers voluntary family planning and comprehensive SRHR services, with a focus on reaching those most in need. It provides support to strengthen health systems, reform policies and laws, improve government ownership and domestic financing, and strengthen accountability to improve SRHR. Since 2018, it has supported over 9.5 million women and girls to use modern methods of contraception across 17 countries in Africa. WISH Dividend will work in at least 17 countries.

Africa Regional Climate and Nature (ARCAN): £18 million in financial year 2023 to 2024

(£7.6 million from Pan Africa Department, £10.4 million from FCDO’s Energy, Climate and Environment Directorate)

Our flagship climate and nature programme, ARCAN works to increase the resilience of African economies and communities to the impacts of a changing climate, sustainable and environmentally sound economic development and low carbon green energy generation and access. It will support countries to integrate renewable energy and build resilience to the impacts of climate change, focusing on energy transition, water resource management, protecting forests, and improving weather and climate information.

Africa Humanitarian Response Fund II (AHRF II): £9.9 million in 2023 to 2024

Our humanitarian programme AHRF II will deliver quality humanitarian assistance in African contexts where the FCDO has no in-country humanitarian expertise or where a regional response is more efficient than a country-by-country approach, allowing the FCDO to respond to both sudden onset and emerging humanitarian crises. It will address severe humanitarian needs where the UK has comparative advantages and deliver life-saving assistance to vulnerable populations in protracted humanitarian contexts in Africa, such as Cameroon and Madagascar. It will also provide technical assistance, operational support and preparedness drawing on UK expertise and scientific evidence.

Other programmes in Pan Africa Department’s financial year 2023 to 2024 portfolio expected to deliver significant results include:

Africa Continental Free Trade Area Support Programme (AfCFTA): £3.3 million in financial year 2023 to 2024

AfCFTA seeks to boost intra-African trade by creating the largest free trade area in the world, which has the potential to drive industrialisation, generate jobs, and reduce poverty. The UK strongly supports the AfCFTA. If fully implemented, it could also generate new trade and investment opportunities for African and UK businesses. The AfCFTA programme will provide a package of trade policy and trade facilitation support to help the AfCFTA Secretariat and its Member States implement the agreement.

Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme 2 (TDDAP 2): £2.6 million in financial year 2023 to 2024

TDDAP 2 will be our flagship health security programme. There is strong evidence that investing in prevention and preparedness saves lives and costs. Working alongside national Governments, regional institutions such as Africa CDC and the WHO’s Regional Office for Africa, and the UK’s network of posts in Africa, this programme will establish (and build on) long-term partnerships between African, UK and global organisations to strengthen health security to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks.

African Union Conflict and Governance Programme (AUCG): £0.7 million in financial year 2023 to 2024

AUCG supports the AU’s leadership role on upstream peace, security, and governance. AUCG supports continental and regional initiatives on electoral observation and institutional capacity building, conflict early warning, mediation and conflict prevention, and strengthening human rights.

Key achievements from some of Pan Africa Department’s recently completed programmes include:

• African Union Support Programme (AUSP), which ended in 2022, supported the AUC to develop a stronger upstream focus on peace and security through work on election monitoring and migration policy development, alongside support to establishment of the AfCFTA. The lessons from AUSP informed the creation of the new AfCFTA and AUCG programmes noted above
• Africa Humanitarian Response Fund (AHRF) support has been provided to over 6 million people in Africa over the past 4 years, including rapid mobilisation to respond to cyclone and tropical storms in Madagascar, lifesaving nutrition interventions targeting young children and mothers in Eritrea, and drought response activities across Southern Africa reaching over one million people. Our work with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to tackle desert locust outbreaks across East and West Africa helped improve the food security of over 4 million people
• Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) improved the resilience of more than eight million people and supported 482,000 households to use new or improved weather and climate information services to inform crisis decision-making
• Tackling Deadly Diseases in Africa Programme (TDDAP) helped 5 partner countries in Africa improve their implementation of International Health Regulations including reaching more than 1.7 million people with life-saving vaccines through sensitisation and awareness campaigns, training more than 1,000 district and community health workers in detecting, preventing, and responding to disease outbreaks
• Pan Africa Department played a key role in establishing AgDevCo, a specialist impact investor in agriculture. In 2022, AgDevCo successfully secured $90 million of external investment from BII, the Norwegian Investment Fund (NorFund) and US International Development Finance Cooperation (DFC). Pan Africa Department’s support created or sustained over 15,000 jobs and worked with 750,000 smallholder farmers to increase their incomes and resilience to climate change

Pan Africa Department takes a strategic portfolio approach to Africa regional development programming. All programme components are closely aligned to current UK priorities in Africa, with 89% of Pan Africa Department’s financial year 2023 to 2024 budget allocated to women and girls, humanitarian, and climate spending. Each programme is designed to be scaled up or down or adapted as needed in future to allow the UK to respond to new challenges and priorities in the region. Pan Africa Department has a robust approach to monitoring and evaluation, notably through independent monitoring arrangements to verify results and collect beneficiary feedback for its key programmes, and independent evaluations planned for our key climate interventions.

Financial information

Initial allocations have been set internally to deliver the priorities set out in the International Development Strategy (May 2022) and the Integrated Review Refresh 2023, based on the FCDO’s Spending Review 2021 settlement.

The department’s spending plans for the period 2022 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 have been revisited to ensure HM Government continues to spend around 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA. This was in the context of the significant and unexpected costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan escape oppression and conflict and find refuge in the UK, and others seeking asylum. The Government provided additional resources of £1 billion in 2022 to 2023 and £1.5 billion in 2023 to 2024 to help meet these unanticipated costs. The Government remains committed to returning ODA spending to 0.7% of GNI when the fiscal situation allows, in line with the approach confirmed by the House of Commons in July 2021.

The country development partnership summaries include the breakdown of programme budgets allocated to individual countries for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. These allocations are indicative and subject to revision as, by its nature, the department’s work is dynamic. Programme allocations are continually reviewed to respond to changing global needs, including humanitarian crises, fluctuations in GNI and other ODA allocation decisions.

These figures do not reflect the full range of UK ODA spending in each individual country/region. This is because they do not include spend delivered through core contributions to multilateral organisation, and country allocations do not include regional programmes delivered by the FCDO’s central departments. Other UK Government departments also spend a large amount of ODA overseas. Details of ODA spent by other UK government departments can be found in their Annual Report and Accounts and the Statistics for International Development.

FCDO ODA allocation: Pan Africa Department

Pan Africa Department’s expected Official Development Assistance (ODA) budgets for financial year 2023 to 2024 and financial year 2024 to 2025 are shown below:

• allocated ODA budget financial year 2023 to 2024: £49.5 million
• indicative ODA budget financial year 2024 to 2025: £93 million

Expected sector spend through Pan Africa Department’s ODA budget in financial year 2023 to 2024 is illustrated in the pie chart below. The ‘other’ category includes spend on BII, Global Health and other areas.

Figure 1. Financial year 2023 to 2024 Pan Africa Department allocated funds by sector: women and girls, 41%; humanitarian, 28%; climate, 20%; other, 11%

Note: Around 4% of Pan Africa Department spend each year supports both humanitarian and climate, shown as Climate only to avoid double counting.

Of ODA spend in Africa through Pan Africa Department in financial year 2022 to 2023, 93% is marked as being principally or significantly focused on promoting gender equality and 75% is marked as being principally or significantly focused on disability inclusion.

In addition to Pan Africa Department’s budget detailed above, we expect to receive inward transfers of funds from FCDO’s Energy, Climate and Environment Directorate (ECED) in financial year 2023 to 2024 and financial year 2024 to 2025 which will contribute to Pan Africa Department’s climate programmes – initially through the ARCAN programme. Expected ECED transfers in financial year 2023 to 2024 are £10.47 million, bringing the Pan Africa Department budget to £58.29 million. ECED transfers for financial year 2024 to 2025 will be confirmed soon.

*[BIP: British Investments Partnership *[PIDG]: Private Infrastructure Development Group *[AfDB]: African Development Bank *[Africa CDC]: Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention *[WHO]: World Health Organization *[AU]: Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention *[AUC]: African Union Commission