Paper short abstract:

This paper assesses how DFID's economic development policy forwards a specific framing of national self-interests alongside development outcomes. It explores how upholding domestic economic interests suggests notable nuances for discourse.

Paper long abstract:

Against a backdrop of overseas development aid's increased domestic scrutiny, whilst maintaining uneasy international commitments to spend 0.7% of GNI on it, The UK Department for International Development (DFID) established an economic development policy focusing heavily on UK-centric outcomes. At first glance, this policy shift echoes how donor countries are increasingly subject to media and/or political accountability to support domestic outcomes even in overseas aid efforts. However, assessing the specific construction of DFID policy rhetoric in its flagship policy text 'Prosperity, Poverty and Meeting Global Challenges' (2017), a shift to unabashedly prioritising domestic outcomes plays into repositioning private capital interests as central to development efforts.

Informed by poststructural policy analysis, this short paper analyses DFID's economic development policy, problematising what it signifies for understandings of poverty, growth, inequality, and aid. Analytical focus is also placed on how demands to make development more accountable to domestic interests can translate into open wielding of the aid apparatus to entrench global power and economic imbalances.