ActionAid congratulates and welcomes the Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, to his new role. We look forward to working with him on his priorities.

We specifically welcome his attention to aid effectiveness, something ActionAid has worked on for many years. We will use this experience to support efforts to make UK aid more transparent, helping to ensure aid is used in ways the British public support. These include fighting global poverty through:

• education
• protecting and promoting the rights of women, especially to be free from violence
• preventing the spread of hunger through investing in smallholder farmers
• strengthening primary health care.

It will also be crucial to ensure UK aid helps those who understand their situation best - people and governments in poor countries - to decide their own futures.

We share Mr Mitchell’s concern for results from development aid and our decades of experience in the field has taught us much about being truly accountable and effective. Crucial building blocks for development such as people’s confidence in making their governments accountable, strength of collective organisation at the community level and partnerships between civil society, business and government do not lend themselves to easy evaluation. Yet these factors are essential for lifting countries out of poverty, and we look forward to finding a consensus on how to monitor and evaluate them.

We at ActionAid are excited by the minister’s desire to look beyond aid to analyse how sustainable international development can take place. We know that to eradicate poverty and create wealth we need fairer trade and good business practice that respects the rights of workers and protects communities and the environment. 

If countries are to eventually wean themselves off aid, they will need more control over their own resources. Tax dodging by multinationals costs developing countries much more than we give in aid and fair and open international tax rules can help end this damaging behaviour. We urge the new Secretary of State to support developing countries in their fight against tax evasion. 

ActionAid looks forward to working with Mr Mitchell on these important issues.