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DFID Annual Report 2008: Making It Happen


Front cover of DFID Annual Report 2008 The UK is leading the way in the fight against poverty. We estimate that the Department for International Development helps to lift 3 million people out of poverty every year.

The UK’s development aid will continue to increase over the next three years, and by 2010 will have more than trebled in real terms since 1997. This investment will ensure we deliver the promises made by the UK at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005, and help countries to accelerate their progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

How well is DFID working? What are we doing to help the billion people around the globe who live in extreme poverty? These are questions that need to be asked, and deserve a straight answer. DFID’s Annual Report 2008 sets out what we did between April 2007 and March 2008 to bring about changes for the better in the developing world.

The report gives a full account of where we spent public money over the last year, and where we have pledged to spend it in coming years, to tackle the challenges that we face.
 

For example, DFID has:

  • provided improved access to water and sanitation, strengthened nutrition and essential health care to 1.5 million people in Zimbabwe;
  • through our contribution to UNICEF helped provide nutritional support to 80,000 acutely undernourished children;
  • through its support to the Government of India’s universal elementary education programme, helped get more than 27 million more children enrolled in school between 2003 and 2006;
  • through its humanitarian assistance in Africa contributed towards the delivery of emergency nutrition, health, shelter, protection and livelihoods recovery programmes reaching approximately 30 million people;
  • through its contribution to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund helped ensure that 5.4 million Afghan children are now gaining an education, over a third of them girls.

Development: Making It Happen is a comprehensive account of an important year for DFID with more attention given to how effectively and transparently aid has been delivered. It is a record of the work that we have done, and a statement of the work that we will do, to keep our promise of ensuring better lives for the world’s poor.

Copies of the report are available from The Stationery Office priced £41.20, Tel: 0870 600 5522, Email: customer.services@tso.co.uk , quoting HC492.

Achievements

Alongside our Annual Report this year, take a look at some of the ways in which DFID is working to help eliminate world poverty on our external linkachievements page.


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Contents

Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development

Front cover and preliminary informationpdf(1,125 kb)
About this report | Contents | Foreword

Douglas Alexander with Burmese migrant school children in Thailand

Chapter 1 - Introduction and key achievementspdf(198 kb)

Students run to school, Ethiopia

Chapter 2 - Reducing poverty in Africapdf(487 kb)
Includes: DFID in Sub-Saharan Africa | Progress towards the MDGs | Regional and pan-Africa initiatives | Progress towards Public Service Agreement | Responding to humanitarian crises in Africa

Kabul street, Afghanistan

Chapter 3 - Reducing poverty in South Asiapdf (497 kb)
Includes: DFID in South Asia | Progress towards the MDGs | Progress towards Public Service Agreement (PSA) | Progress in non-PSA countries in South Asia

A banana farmer handling bananas, St Lucia

Chapter 4 - Reducing poverty in Europe, Central and East Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle Eastpdf (2 mb)
Includes: Progress towards the MDGs | Public Service Agreement | Europe and Central Asia | East Timor | Burma | Latin America and Caribbean | Overseas Territories

Adult education in Bangladesh

Chapter 5 - Making bilateral aid more effectivepdf (351 kb)
Includes: UK commitments on bilateral aid effectiveness | Progress against the Paris Declaration commitments | Principles underpinning DFID aid | Untying aid | Development Partnership Arrangements | Public Financial Management and fiduciary risk |  Tackling corruption | Results action plan

A displaced woman who is sheltered at a refugee camp sits in front of a tarpaulin bearing the logo of the United Nations (UN) High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Chapter 6 - Making the multilateral system more effectivepdf (410 kb)
Includes: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund | Building a more effective United Nations | The European Union | The African Development Bank | The Asian Development Bank | Global Funds and Partnerships | Assessing the effectiveness of the multilateral agencies | The way forward

transporting sweetcorn for the market

Chapter 7 - Working with others on policies beyond aidpdf (327 kb)
Includes: Commitment to development index | UK co-ordination mechanisms | Growth – development of an open trading system | Growth – investment and development | Development of an open financial system | Enhancement of debt relief | Migration | Research and technology | MDG call to action | Bilateral relations | Working with civil society

Women processing millet grain, Niger

Chapter 8 - Conflict, crisis and fragile statespdf (350 kb)
Includes: Working effectively in fragile states | Conflict prevention, recovery and peace building | Post-conflict reconstruction/stabilisation unit | Security, access to justice and arms control | Reform of the international humanitarian system | Humanitarian crises response | Disaster risk reduction

A camel on drought-ridden earth, Yemen

Chapter 9 - The environment, climate change and natural resourcespdf (140 kb)
Includes: Climate change | Environment and natural resources

Douglas Alexander meets Sudanese women in Northern Darfur

Chapter 10 - Building an effective organisationpdf (285 kb)
Includes: Getting our structure right | Managing business change | Delivering results | Risk and control | Deploying and developing our staff | People Management | Annual Public Appointment Plan | Ensuring effective procurement | Making DFID greener

Boys carrying water

Annexes 1 to 12pdf (1 mb)
Includes: Expenditure | Millennium Development Goals | Public Service Agreement.


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