DFID programmes have expanded access to family planning and some maternal health services, but a renewed effort is required to reach young women and girls and to generate lasting impacts on quality of care and maternal health outcomes.

An appropriate overall approach to procurement with good performance in most areas of tendering, but significant weaknesses in contract management.

In 2016-17, the Department for International Development (DFID) spent £1.4 billion, or 14% of its budget, through commercial suppliers on contracts ranging from school construction to family planning services and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

ICAI’s follow-up review looks at how well DFID and other government departments have responded to our key findings and the recommendations we made in 2016-17 reviews.

Each year we conduct a follow-up assessment of ICAI reviews from the previous year. This process is an important step in the chain of accountability, providing the International Development Committee (IDC) and wider development stakeholders with evidence on whether the government has taken appropriate action in response to ICAI’s recommendations.

DFID overcame substantial barriers to the delivery of aid, such as food, shelter and vaccines but took too long to put the required staffing and resources in place

The conflict in Syria has been one of the most brutal in modern history, costing nearly half a million lives, displacing more than 12 million people from their homes and leaving 5.6 million in severe humanitarian need in Syria.

Around one in six people in developing countries live with a disability. As a group, they tend to be poorer, and suffer more discrimination, exclusion and violence than the rest of the population.

The UK government played a significant role in getting disability included as a central concern of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, but since then has been slower in systematically including the concerns and challenges facing people living with disability in its own programming.