I want to be clear that the focus on multilateralism in UK Aid is here to stay. And our commitment to working through agile alliances in our diplomacy will continue to be a hallmark.
As we approach the UK’s Presidencies of the G20 and G7, the questions I’m interested in are:
- How do we best create alliances with other countries and institutions that want to move fast and try things?
- How do we mobilise the best forces – scientific, diplomatic, creative, philanthropic, commercial, diasporic – to create the breakthroughs that we need?
- And how do we ensure that the overwhelming majority of our time and effort, beyond responding to emergencies, is spent on these shared risks which impact us all, North and South, and where their resolution will represent neither charity offered nor justice owed but instead a common solution to problems in our common life?
And where multilateral institutions are not the right mechanism, we will be flexible and build coalitions – as we did last week on sanctions, or as Brazil has with their Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty.
Photo: UK Government