On 6th April, the Scottish Parliament’s Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee (CEEAC) published its report on the Scottish Government’s International Work. The committee makes a number of recommendations that we believe align well with our own recently published discussion paper on the future of Scottish Government International Development Programming, particularly around the need to adopt a joined up strategic approach to its external affairs to support global solidarity.
You can view the Committee’s report here.
The report details the Committee’s findings following their inquiry last autumn, to which the Alliance submitted this response. As part of the inquiry, the Alliance also gave oral evidence to MSPs earlier this year alongside the Scotland Malawi Partnership and Glasgow Caledonian University.
The Alliance was pleased to see reference to important points raised by all three organisations in the report. We particularly welcome the recommendations on developing a new strategic approach and the need for policy coherence, the latter a point we made emphatically in our evidence submissions.
The committee recommends that the Scottish Government must ensure strategic alignment across external affairs activities, and foster effective collaboration across government to encourage policy coherence in relation both to external affairs and how this interacts with domestic priorities; be that working towards a wellbeing economy, sustainable development, promoting gender equality, or protecting human rights etc.
Our own recently published draft discussion paper (which we are seeking feedback on) makes a similar recommendation. We firmly believe a new ‘Global Solidarity Strategy’ is vital for a more joined up approach to Scotland’s contribution to global sustainable development. However, we think a new strategy of this kind should sit alongside, not below, the newly planned global affairs framework that the committee’s report references.
We also welcome the recommendations that any revised future international framework should set out its values and objectives (linked to the domestic agenda); stipulate a long-term timeframe (e.g. for the remainder of the 2020s); prioritise countries, regions and policy themes; and provide a clear rationale for that prioritization.
The need to provide clear rationale on prioritisation, both in terms of how and where money is spent, is another key point we echo in our own recent paper. We believe this is vital to improve transparency, accountability and trust in international development programming.
In this regard, we strongly welcomed the Committee’s invitation to the Scottish Government to provide a breakdown of its current international development grants in respect of the process followed – i.e. competitive and non-competitive, and the rationale for that approach.
Finally, and more broadly, the Alliance also firmly agrees with the Committee that public interest and understanding is a key component in appreciation of how our actions and behaviour in Scotland can impact on people elsewhere.
We therefore welcome that they recommend that the Scottish Government considers how it can raise public awareness not only of its international policy overall, but also an understanding of specific issues such as sustainability, climate justice, human rights and other critical points.