Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Afghanistan + 12 more

The Engine of Development: The private sector and prosperity for poor people, May 2011

Attachments

UK aid is about generating opportunity and prosperity for poor people in developing countries.

This document sets out how we intend to put the private sector centre-stage in doing this.

Our new approach to working with the private sector is about us doing more with and for private enterprise, extending this work in new areas, and doing it better. We want private sector thinking to become as much part of DFID’s DNA as our work with charities and governments.

The new approach will deliver results for poor people: better job opportunities and incomes; more readily available and affordable finance for households and small businesses; and more accessible, better quality healthcare, schooling and basic services.

The approach will back interventions with potential to transform the business environment; reducing barriers, costs and risks of doing business, expanding markets and trade, boosting energy availability, and strengthening transport and communications.

At the same time, we’ll strive to expand the business environment by stimulating private investment in places presently shunned by commercial investors – through a revitalised CDC and through existing and new international organisations.

Our development priorities will permeate all our work with the private sector. An absolute commitment to poverty reduction. Empowering girls and women. Fighting and coping with climate change. Helping recovery from conflict and natural disasters. Greater transparency. More use of evidence and independent evaluation.

We believe the approach will be good for development and good for the UK. Fostering private sector growth in developing countries will help them become more attractive trading partners for the UK and better able to deal with disasters, disease and environmental degradation.

This document is not a blueprint for our future work. We are learning, and want to learn more, about how best to encourage the dynamism of private enterprise as an engine of development and poverty reduction.

Headline Results We will:

  • Help more than 50 million people to access savings, credit and insurance - Help half the countries in Africa benefit from freer trade
  • Secure the right to land and property for more than six million people
  • Support jobs and opportunities to generate income for more than ten million people

Of these results, our focus on women and girls will specifically target access to finance for 18 million women and opportunities and secure access to land for 4.5 million women.