Context COVID-19 has created immediate challenges and foregrounded systemic fragilities in global supply chains The FCDO launched the BP4GG programme in February of 2020 to co-create initiatives with businesses to pilot and scale shared value innovations that can tackle the Sustainable Development Goals. On 11th March, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The shocks to complex supply chains across the world were already being felt. With national lockdowns, restricted travel and an immediate focus on maintaining the flow of essential goods, many industries were thrown into chaos and millions of vulnerable people were falling back into poverty. In response to this growing crisis, the BP4GG programme created the Vulnerable Supply Chains Facility (VSCF), a fund to rapidly form partnerships with businesses and not for profits to jointly deliver support to vulnerable people in some of the hardest hit supply chains in agriculture and garments manufacturing. As the pandemic continues, the situation has evolved from an immediate crisis-footing to questions around the longer-term resilience and sustainability of supply chains, and how to protect workers and their livelihoods during this pandemic, supporting their recovery, and in insulating them against future shocks. The BP4GG programme will close at the end of 2021. The team is evaluating the experience of bringing together a disparate group of stakeholders to form a rapid response and thinking about the implications and sustainability of the activities that have been initiated. At the same time, supply chain challenges in the UK have become increasingly acute and there is a surge of interest around how well global links in the chain are able to withstand public health shocks as well as economic and political changes. such as Brexit. The UK has hosted COP26 to impel global leaders to commit to a drastic climate response. Both COP26 and COVID-19 are foregrounding the need to overhaul the current economic system, and take radical action on climate, wealth generation and inequity. In the UK this is translating to the need for post-COVID-19 ‘build back better’ green recovery.
FCDO merger In September 2020 the UK Department for International Development (DFID) merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to become a joint diplomatic and development assistance department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO). Part of this mandate will be to bring trade and development closer, priorities that have been made more acute by the impact of COVID-19 and the UK’s departure from the European Union. In November 2020 departmental budgets for 2021-22 were announced following a year-long spending review. Given the impact of the global pandemic on the economy and public finances the UK reduced its 2021 spend on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%. The most recent budget announcement in October 2021 commits to that reduction in spending until 2024.
The need for FCDO to work with the private sector and other partners to deliver on the SDGs is more pressing than ever. The need to build resilient supply chains and meet SDG targets remains, while at the same time FCDO budget for funding large-scale projects has been reduced. This means the nature of FCDO’s role in tackling these challenges is changing. The overall financing gap to deliver on the SDGs has also continued to widen. To be able to effectively meet the challenges this presents, FCDO will have to work more closely and collaboratively than ever before with businesses in the UK and worldwide.
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