In February 2025, the Prime Minister announced a major cut in UK aid – from 0.58% of gross national income (GNI) in 2023 to just 0.3% by 2027. As the government makes difficult decisions about what to keep or cut, it is crucial to recognise how governance and anti-corruption programmes can play a pivotal role in realising its foreign policy ambitions and why cutting them would be a mistake. This is particularly the case for a new approach to Africa which is focused on respectful partnerships and long-term growth.
A small slice of the pie, but a critical foundation for sustainable growth
Anti-corruption and governance aid represents a tiny fraction of the overall aid budget. In 2023, just 3.1% of UK official development assistance (ODA) – £468 million – was spent on general ‘government and civil society’ programmes. This is significantly less than the £4.3 billion spent in the UK on refugee costs (27.9% of total ODA) and the £881 million spent on humanitarian aid.
These governance programmes support everything from strengthening anti-corruption bodies and improving legal systems, to promoting financial transparency, human rights, and democratic participation. Although less headline grabbing than some aid spending, and often undertaken in difficult political contexts, they have delivered useful results in making government, political, media and civil society bodies more effective; improving the working of democratic institutions; and contributing to sustainable institutional changes.
Anti-corruption aid in action: strengthening governance and accountability in Ghana
The UK’s governance work in Ghana since 2010 provides two striking examples of the importance of this work.
Oil and gas
The discovery of oil and gas reserves in Ghana in 2007 raised concerns that, like many resource-rich countries, Ghana could experience the resource curse – where poor management of natural resource revenues undermines development. In response, shortly after oil production commenced, the UK launched the Ghana Oil and Gas for Inclusive Growth programme. An independent evaluation found that the programme successfully improved governance in the oil and gas sector (reflected in higher Resource Governance Index scores) and secured additional government revenues worth six times the programme’s cost.
Civil society
The UK has also been a key supporter of Ghanaian civil society, which plays a vital role in strengthening accountability in one of Africa’s most successful democracies. However, the future health of Ghana’s democracy cannot be taken for granted. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has highlighted “critical governance challenges” including growing concern about corruption in government and political party financing and a “high risk of contagion” from growing instability in the region. Meanwhile, the capacity of civil society organisations “is often challenged by limited access to long-term and flexible funding”. In light of these risks the FCDO makes a strong case for continued UK investment in Ghana’s governance, warning that “the UK cannot afford for Ghana to fail”.
Ghana also highlights the evolving nature of governance challenges. Whilst earlier work focused on the oil and gas sectors, future efforts will need to be sufficiently flexible to meet new challenges, such as keeping pace with a dynamic critical minerals industry, which has been opaque at best and potentially corrupt at worst.
Reaping the rewards of aid-funded work
Aid also funds UK enforcement agencies working to combat international corruption and recover stolen assets. This work has delivered valuable enforcement outcomes, including £21 of assets frozen for every £1 spent, for just £5.7 million (0.04% of total ODA) in 2023. The programme was promised increased funding in December as part of the government’s broader effort to make the UK a hostile environment for corrupt money.
Although anti-corruption and governance work receives only a modest share of aid funding, it lays essential foundations for long-term economic growth and stability. The link between governance, stability and growth is well documented in research by the IMF, the World Bank and the pre-merger UK Department for International Development (in 2006 and 2019). With global aid volumes shrinking dramatically, fostering the conditions for lasting growth – and enabling countries to eventually become self-reliant – is more important than ever.
Corruption is a root cause of instability and underdevelopment
In contrast, poor governance and corruption undermine growth and drain resources that should be building schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. The UN estimates that illicit capital flight from Africa alone reaches $89 billion annually – more than the continent’s total education spending and nearly twice the value of aid inflows. Countries with huge natural resource wealth have signed them away to foreign companies with massive discounts in opaque deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, while their citizens have seen little benefit. The government’s business case for combatting international illicit finance summarises the problem this way: “Every act of grand corruption or organised crime which generates illicit finance undermines delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
Corruption also undermines trust, deters investment and fuels conflicts which are harder and much more expensive to address later on. Political upheavals in Bangladesh, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria have all been preceded by years of systemic corruption. As the Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned in late 2024: “Corrupt actors … and their enablers loot wealth from their countries and their fellow citizens to line their own pockets, fuelling wars and other security threats in the UK and overseas.” Corruption has also been linked to migration, as a lack of economic opportunity plays a major role in driving people away.
These challenges have always mattered – but with aid increasingly scarce, prioritising efforts to tackle corruption as a root cause of these harms has become even more urgent.
Strategic benefits for the UK
Choosing to invest a little of our remaining aid budget on governance and anti-corruption programmes benefits the UK by helping secure our foreign policy and economic objectives, while also supporting partner countries’ growth and reducing their future reliance on stretched aid budgets.
- By helping to promote stability, better governance supports UK security and foreign policy interests, both in relation to strategic regional partners like Nigeria and Bangladesh, and by reducing conflict-related threats to the UK.
- By creating fairer markets and business environments, better governance benefits UK investors and exporters, particularly in fast-growing regions such as Africa. As Lord Leong recently recognised, “Africa is an important market as part of our strategy” to support UK economic growth and David Lammy has acknowledged that overlooking the importance of Africa would be a “huge mistake”.
Achieving these long-term benefits requires a patient, strategic approach – one that supports the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to respectful partnerships with low and middle income countries including African nations – by strengthening their democracies and enabling sustainable growth.
Reform at home matters too
Supporting improved governance in low and middle income countries can help stem corruption and reduce the outflows of illicit finance that are disastrous for development. But reforms in the UK matter as well because it is often the destination for illicit flows, and home to companies whose overseas bribery helps entrench corrupt systems. So while supporting governance through aid is vital, the UK must also take stronger domestic action to prevent its companies from undermining governance abroad – and to maintain its credibility as a partner in promoting good governance.
This includes:
- Reforming regulation of UK enablers: ‘Professional enablers’ within UK professional services such as banks, law firms, trust and company service providers, accountants and estate agents, have all played a role in helping steal and conceal wealth from low and middle income countries. A Transparency International report found that the UK and British Virgin Islands were among the top jurisdictions for professional enablers involved in 78 corruption cases across 33 countries in Africa.
Robust anti-money laundering (AML) regulation and supervision are vital to prevent these professions from enabling asset theft or hiding illicit funds in the UK. However, the UK’s current AML supervisory regime for non-financial professional services is failing and requires comprehensive reform. We have set out five key recommendations to inform the Treasury’s ongoing review of AML supervision, pointing out how consolidating AML supervision for the non-financial professional services can help achieve a step change in the effectiveness of efforts to tackle enabling. - Being a responsible investor: With the government’s growing emphasis on economic diplomacy and the rush to secure critical minerals to support green technologies, it is more important than ever to ensure that the UK’s trade and investment is responsible. This includes properly resourcing UK law enforcement to hold companies to account where they engage in corrupt practices. With the US scaling back enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the UK has an opportunity to lead on tackling foreign bribery and uphold high standards of corporate conduct that protect British businesses operating abroad. It also includes ensuring that robust transparency and anti-corruption standards are embedded into the ‘missions’ of the new global Clean Power Alliance.
In addition, the regime for compensating overseas victims of corruption in major foreign bribery prosecutions needs reforming. Recent foreign bribery cases show that compensation to the victims of corruption is rare and the amounts offered paltry. For example, of the £1.9 billion of penalties from Serious Fraud Office enforcement against 15 companies for international corruption and bribery, only £16.3 million – or less than 1% – was paid to the affected countries. We have set out a further five recommendations for how the government can deliver a step change in compensation for the overseas victims of corruption.
The bottom line
As the government reviews its aid spending, and the FCDO’s future focus, it should look beyond short-term, easily delivered and measured outcomes, and consider what will tackle the root causes of poverty and instability. Anti-corruption and governance programmes are a vital long-term investment because they are essential for building the foundations for sustainable growth and supporting the UK’s strategic interests.
With global aid volumes shrinking dramatically, fostering the conditions for lasting growth – by enabling countries to eventually become self-reliant and trusted partners – is more important than ever.
