Global Citizenship: Scotland's International Development Strategy

Our Ways Of Working

Investing our International Development Fund

Barber Shop, southern Malawi
Credit: Karen Smith at MEGA, Malawi

The International Development Fund ( IDF) is determined by Scottish Ministers in the context of spending reviews and is subject to Scottish Parliament approval and scrutiny.

We will endeavour to improve the effectiveness of the IDF to provide best value. In order to safeguard valuable taxpayer funds, we are committed to appropriate planning, robust management and effective monitoring and reporting of the IDF. We will also retain our existing policy of not providing direct funding to the governments of our partner countries. Our IDF will be distributed to ensure optimum outcomes, both for those people living in our partner countries, as well as the Scottish taxpayer.

In order to invest our IDF strategically and in line with good development practice we will develop and maintain three separate funding streams:

Development Assistance, Capacity Strengthening and Investment, to achieve Our Vision and implement Our Priorities.

Our three funding streams:

1. Development assistance: we believe that development assistance continues to play a key role in promoting the welfare and economic development of our partner countries. We will continue to fund development initiatives in our partner countries, through a range of organisations. Funding will be allocated principally through a competitive challenge fund model. Development assistance will be provided through the following mechanisms:

• Our Malawi Development Programme, Zambia Development Programme and Rwanda Development Programme - we will continue to fund a main development programme in each of these partner countries;
• Our Small Grants Programme - we will continue to fund our Small Grants Programme, keeping it under review to make any improvements deemed necessary, including possible changes to its geographic focus;
• Our support for civil society in Scotland - we will continue to support civil society in Scotland, including through networking organisations, to engage in, and build domestic support and understanding of, international development. We will also continue to support and promote Scotland's contribution to Fair Trade.

2. Capacity strengthening: we believe that development partnerships can also be realised through peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing on key areas of mutual interest, through which both institutions can strengthen their knowledge, harness expertise, skills and capacity and empower their people. We will seek to match and enable support where a need for particular institutional assistance and skills sharing has been identified by a partner country. We will support partnership links between institutions in Scotland and our partner countries and between institutions within our partner countries. We will support the tackling of shared global challenges. To strengthen capacity, we will also promote and assist targeted skills sharing from relevant sectors and provide scholarships through:

• Our Malawi Development Programme, Zambia Development Programme and Rwanda Development Programme;
• Our Pakistan Development Programme - the refreshed Pakistan Engagement Strategy outlines four key areas of collaboration between Scotland and Pakistan: Trade, Investment & Enterprise; Energy & Water; Education & Skills; and Culture & Heritage. Through our capacity strengthening funding stream we will support the education and skills strand of the Pakistan Engagement Plan, through dedicated scholarships and collaboration with key Scottish educational agencies focused on education system improvement; and
• Our support for global citizenship in Scotland - building on Scotland's strong track record of global citizenship education and learning for sustainability, we will consider funding opportunities for Scottish organisations which support young people to volunteer in our partner countries.

3. Investment: we believe that trade and investment is important, as is the role of the private sector, in supporting our partner countries as they move beyond aid in developing sustainable economic growth, as follows:

• We will support trade and investment to promote economic development of Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda in line with wider government policies in those countries.
• We will also seek to help Scottish social enterprises expand internationally and help those partner countries realise the benefits of the social enterprise model.

Match funding: we will also consider opportunities for match funding initiatives in our partner countries for all three funding streams, dependent upon the availability of funds at the time, which support our agreed development priorities for that country.

Longer partnerships: we will consider how we might better secure and support longer term partnerships for all three funding streams.

Funding in addition to the International Development Fund:

• Humanitarian Aid Fund: the Scottish Government recognises the significant contribution that Scotland already makes to international crises through the work of DFID, NGOs and individuals in Scotland. However, Scottish Ministers may wish to respond to international humanitarian crises in recognition of Scotland's role as a good global citizen. This response will primarily be delivered via a separate Humanitarian Aid Fund. Additionally, where there is an immediate humanitarian need within our partner countries we will consider on a case-by-case basis support from the IDF.
• Climate Justice Fund: launched in 2012, this fund aims to lessen the impacts of climate change on some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people and deliver equitable global development in our Sub-Saharan Africa partner countries.

Utilising Scottish expertise

A key tenet of our IDS is to harness existing Scottish and in-country expertise in key areas that could benefit global development. Our international development programme has built upon and shared globally many of the things that Scotland does best. In doing so we will not seek to export Scottish institutions or ideas, but rather to offer the best of our skills and knowledge where it is of tangible use to our partners. We also want to harness and encourage the best of local expertise and skills in our partner countries.

We will not restrict under our Strategy the thematic areas of development activity in our partner countries, in recognition that the Global Goals are indivisible and cross-cutting in nature. Our development work will therefore look at how best to align our national expertise in support of the agreed priorities of our partner countries.

Areas of Scottish expertise that we know have the potential to contribute to the achievement of the Global Goals include:

• Health (particularly in higher education capacity strengthening, mental health, and non-communicable disease)
• Education (particularly in higher education, and inspection and quality improvement)
• Sustainable Economic Development (particularly in financial management)
• Renewable Energy
• Governance (particularly democratic engagement and Parliamentary activity)
• Water Governance and Management (where as part of our Hydro Nation programme we will build on the firm foundation of support to date in Malawi for water governance and management initiatives)
• Climate change and climate justice
• Programmatic implementation of the Global Goals, which the Scottish Government will undertake through the National Performance Framework

This expertise may be found across a range of sectors in Scotland: registered charities; our academic sector; our public bodies and health service; and in the private sector, including social enterprises.

Collaborating with others

Our approach to international development is one of working in "partnerships of equals" with others, both within Scotland and with our partner countries. In particular, we have developed a unique development partnership model with Malawi through the civil society links between our two countries. The approach is people-led, which we consider key to learning and building on our successes in international development. We believe this "bottom up" and "partnerships of equals" approach to international development is a particular Scottish strength in addressing the shared challenges that our world faces.

Therefore, and in line with the One Scotland Approach, we recognise that achieving success depends on collaborative working and collective action.

Partner Countries

We will work with our partner countries' Governments to best align our work in support of the agreed priorities:

• The Malawi Cooperation Agreement and Malawi Development Programme will contribute to the priorities identified by the Government of Malawi.
• The programmes in Zambia and Rwanda will be outlined in our in-country plans. We will consider how, through each of the funding streams, Scotland can best contribute to meeting the priorities identified by our partner countries.
• Our international development work in Pakistan will be articulated through supporting the education and skills strand of our Pakistan Engagement Strategy. We want to help to foster an equal partnership, one which reflects Pakistan's own priorities to raise standards of education.

Civil Society

We value the role civil society plays as an agent of effective change and accountability, in particular for the poorest and most vulnerable communities. Through their work and knowledge they can advocate on global issues - helping to raise awareness amongst decision-makers in Scotland and harnessing support from the people of Scotland.

We will continue to collaborate effectively with communities (including diasporas) and civil society organisations both large and small, in Scotland and our partner countries, to improve our development work, promote and protect human rights and sustainable development, and maximise our development fund.

Principles such as empowerment, equality and social justice are common to many civil society organisations, and are congruent with their aims to reduce poverty and inequality and promote social justice globally. We will encourage and support the role of civil society in developing networks, sharing knowledge and providing a collective voice in both Scotland and our partner countries.

Other Governments and Donors

We aim to make a distinctive development contribution through focusing Scotland's expertise, being innovative and employing our partnership approach. In doing so, however, in line with good development practice, and to enable an overall joined-up approach between donors, we aim to work collaboratively with other funders.

We value our close relationship with the UK Government's Department for International Development ( DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ( FCO), particularly in Malawi. This relationship will continue to be important as we expand our development programmes in Zambia and Rwanda.

We will continue to look to, and learn from, other countries and their national development agencies, including other small countries akin to Scotland, to work together to enhance what we do and promote the Global Goals.

Through a collaborative approach with other funders, whether national development agencies, subscription lotteries, philanthropic organisations or individuals, we may: partner in match funding initiatives; implement joint programmes through pooled funding initiatives; and expand or ensure the scaling up of our funded initiatives by other funders.

In our partnership work we want to encourage multi-stakeholder partnerships to harness a range of expertise, knowledge and resources, including public-private and civil society partnerships which support the achievement of the Global Goals.

Rwandan women, beneficiaries of Tearfund project
Credit: Chris Hoskins/Tearfund

Promoting the Beyond Aid agenda

The Beyond Aid agenda takes a holistic approach to sustainable development, requiring all - government, local government, public bodies, private sector, communities and individuals - to adapt their behaviour in support of the Global Goals.

Scottish Government

For our part, we are committed to integrating the principles and priorities of this IDS into our broader policy agenda for global good. We recognise that development assistance and other initiatives funded under the IDF are one part of international development work and that some of the greater benefits to the world's poorest and most vulnerable can be brought about through policy changes. A large variety of development challenges need to be addressed outside the traditional development cooperation sphere.

To this end we will focus on three elements as part of a stepwise approach:

• ensuring different Scottish Government policies work in synergy with our development policy;
• eliminating policy incoherence which can undermine or hamper development progress; and
• identifying other Scottish Government policies which can contribute positively to development outcomes and impact.

We will continue to work across Ministerial portfolios to support international aims and identify other policies which can contribute positively to development outcomes. This will include (but is not limited to):

• International Trade and Investment
• Education
• Migration Policy
• Climate Justice
• Climate Change
• Water Governance and Management

In addition to our contribution to inclusive and sustainable development for developing countries through our Trade and Investment Strategy, we are committed to Scotland continuing to be a fair trade nation.

Outwith Government

We will also promote the Beyond Aid agenda outwith government to consider sustainable development and the impact on developing countries in particular, in everyday decisions and behaviours around social, economic and environmental choices. We will do this by encouraging and supporting Scottish public bodies, our private sector, communities and individuals to embrace the Beyond Aid agenda.

Tearfund Project, Karonga, Malawi
Credit: Tearfund