ICAI Annual Report 2020-2021
7 Jul 2021
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has today published its Annual Report which reflects on the work of the aid watchdog during a period of significant change.
The report covers the period from April 2020 to March 2021. During this time, ICAI published eight reviews: three scored reviews, one rapid review, a companion report to a scored review, the annual follow up review and two information notes. These were:
- The UK’s work with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,
- ICAI follow-up review of 2018-19 reports,
- The UK’s support to the African Development Bank Group,
- Assessing DFID’s results in nutrition,
- Sexual exploitation and abuse by international peacekeepers,
- The UK’s approach to tackling modern slavery through the aid programme,
- Management of the 0.7% ODA spending target
- UK aid spending during COVID-19: management of procurement through suppliers.
A number of important themes have emerged across our reviews over the last year. These include; a changing UK aid landscape following the merger of the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the COVID-19 pandemic causing major in-year changes to UK aid; an increase in efforts to address the ‘leave no one behind’ principle; gender issues, where more can be done within UK aid programming; and the plight of fragile and conflict-affected states, which continue to face considerable development challenges.
Despite a turbulent year in the UK aid sector, ICAI has been able to continue its work on major themes, such as climate change, and used periods of uncertainty to carry out timely reports, such as the information note on Gavi, the Global Vaccine Alliance, just ahead of the pledging conference in June 2020. During the process of following up on our 2018-19 reviews, we found all ICAI recommendations were accepted or partially accepted by government, and 79% were actioned.
Following the recognition in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development (FCDO) review of ICAI of its crucial role, ICAI continues to scrutinise UK aid in line with its mandate and at a time when monitoring public spending is more important than ever.