How we developed the Bond manifesto 2024

At Bond, over the last few months we’ve been working to develop our sector manifesto, ‘A Global System for People and Planet’, which will be launched at an event in Parliament this evening, with speakers from the sector and multiple political parties. 

As all political parties look to the general election, we see this as a key influencing opportunity for the international development sector to shape the next government’s policies on international development, including in relation to humanitarian assistance, development cooperation priorities and the UK’s role in global policies on climate, trade, tax, civic space and multilateral finance reform.  

Our unique role as the membership organisation representing the UK international development charities and NGOs, at Bond we have been able to convene our members to produce a document that reflects the positions of the sector across a range of international development issues and challenges, which we will be using to influence the policies of all political parties both before and after the next general election. 

Through a series of workshops, various Bond working group meetings and other consultations, we reached out across our membership of more than 380 organisations to identify the key issues that the sector wants the next government to champion in pursuit of creating a fairer and more sustainable world. All Bond member organisations were invited to join this process, from our largest ‘household name’ members, to our smaller and more specialist members. Over four months, members debated in meetings and inputted into Google documents to create several draft versions of a manifesto, before a final version was produced which has been supported by all the members who participated in the process.  

During this process, common themes arose, and we used these to structure the manifesto around seven chapters.  

• the UK acting as a responsible development partner 
• creating an equitable global financial system 
• recommitting to the SDGs 
• tackling the climate crisis 
• developing a new approach to UK trade and private sector investment 
• promoting stability, security and effective crisis response 
• protecting and promoting rights, freedoms and civic space. 

The document opens by acknowledging the role that the UK has played over recent decades in reducing extreme poverty and increasing living standards globally through our ODA budgets, support for debt relief and efforts to mobilise global commitment on the MDGs and SDGs. However, it also highlights that as global development challenges have increased, so have the global development shortfalls, and the UK has both an opportunity and a responsibility to take action in solidarity with global actors to address these challenges. 

At the heart of the manifesto is the central maxim that the UK’s role in promoting sustainable development goes well beyond its aid programs to encompass policies on trade, investment, business, migration, security and energy. Across the sector there is a consensus that cross-government policy coherence for sustainable development is the most powerful channel for transformational change. 

And while this can sound abstract, the manifesto sets out the practical steps the next UK government can take to address these global system failures, help secure the SDGs, and evolve its global role from ‘donor’ to partner acting in solidarity.  

The manifesto will be launched in Parliament on 20 March, and is available here. It will be disseminated to key political actors to help shape their policies over coming months, as well as during the first weeks and months of a new government after the election. 

We would like to thank all the Bond members who took the time to input to, critique and improve the manifesto. We could not have done it without all your hard work.