The UK government’s much-delayed international development strategy was an opportunity to state how development and diplomacy can work together to protect human rights and promote civic freedoms, which in turn support the delivery of broader development and foreign policy goals.
Instead, it makes a big gamble: that the pursuit of bilateral trade, investment and security agreements can be leveraged to protect individual liberties and democracy.
Those who will suffer most from this trickle-down approach to the protection of human rights and civic freedoms are marginalised people and the civil society activists who work alongside them, who disproportionately feel the impacts of autocratic behaviour and should be at the heart of our development policy and programming.
