Management of aid spending target and ending violence against women and girls among new ICAI review topics

13 Mar 2025

Management of the aid spending target and violence against women and girls are among the areas to be scrutinised by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) over the next year. 

ICAI has agreed with Parliament’s International Development Committee (IDC) that it will examine and report on the following areas of UK international development assistance: 

• Management of the official development assistance spending target, assessing the management of the government’s legislative target to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development assistance. This target was temporarily reduced to 0.5% in November 2020 and to 0.3% in February 2025.  

• Ending violence against women and girls, examining the government’s effectiveness in ending violence against women and girls in UK development assistance.  

• The UK’s partnership approach for international development, assessing how the UK government works with partners, such as other governments, in light of the UK’s emphasis on a “new, modern approach [to international development], based on genuine partnership, trust, and respect”. 

• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) approaches to programme delivery, examining the FCDO’s approaches to contracting and sub-contracting programme delivery, focusing on risk management and value for money. This will complement ICAI’s review into the UK’s partnership approach.  

• UK international development finance: The use of non-grant instruments, looking at the use and management of non-grant instruments, such as loans, equity and guarantees, including whether there is an evidence-based strategy for the choice of instrument and whether they are managed appropriately. 

• UK support for refugee host countries, examining UK support to low- and middle-income countries hosting refugees from neighbouring countries.  

These reviews will be conducted in addition to two reviews already underway:  

• UK aid to Sudan 

• UK aid for energy transition 

The selection of these review topics was informed by the results of a public consultation conducted last year. They also reflect ICAI’s analysis of current UK international development assistance spending, set out in a recently published report, How UK aid is spent.  

ICAI will also assess the government’s progress on addressing previous recommendations.