Ian Mitchell

There are concerns that this year’s El Niño—set to be the largest in living memory—could add another source of pressure on global food markets, alongside volatile global oil and fertilizer prices as a result of conflict in the Middle East, and renewed disruption of Black Sea grain exports as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are we heading for a food price spike that pushes millions into hunger and extreme poverty, as well as causing inflationary pressures across the global economy?

“An attempt to show how both Russia and the West have come to be as they are—at daggers drawn, right now, but hopefully not forever.” writes Ian Mitchell

Leadership change has brought the UK a foreign secretary with a globally respected climate record, and a development minister with a deep understanding of the needs of the world's poorest. Building off the strategy, the FCDO and DESNZ should work with other departments to set out a more comprehensive set of measures to reflect the scale of the challenge facing global climate and development finance, enable ever scarcer ODA to be targeted where it is needed most, set stretching impact targets, report transparently on volumes and results, and lead other countries to ensure global climate finance is fully effective. Only then will the UK be sweating all of its resources, and reaping the benefit of driving clean and resilient investment to where it is needed. Success will require reform in how policy commitments are delivered, not only how they are announced

This policy paper evaluates the UK's updated approach to international climate finance (ICF), which incorporates a £6 billion three- year official development assistance (ODA) target with a new £6.7 billion non-ODA target and a commitment to improve coherence between the UK's ODA and non-ODA levers. Using publicly available information, we examine the overall levels and focus of the finance. We find overall ICF levels to remain broadly stable over the coming period amid rising needs, with a significant rise in the share of non-grant finance with limited benefits for least developed countries. We note a number of delivery risks and highlight six recommendations with a focus on opportunities to improve coherence, focus, impact, and ambition of the UK's climate finance strategy.

In this blog, we look at Scotland's unique role on international development. We show that to meet the UN target for aid as an independent Scotland would cost just under an additional £1 billion per year and ask whether it can find £50m to turn its development role from incremental to meaningful in Malawi. Our new analysis of UK aid in Malawi illustrates the kinds of impact this sort of budget can make. The Scottish government has previously been willing to take its own position on international issues. Doing so again now could help save lives in Malawi, Scotland's longest-standing development partner, and demonstrate a clear departure from the approach taken by the Starmer and Trump governments.

This paper updates an earlier analysis of China's role across multilateral development banks, vertical funds, and development-oriented UN entities, examining China as shareholder, contributor, borrower, recipient, and institutional actor. It also estimates China's attributable multilateral climate finance under the accounting approach relevant to the $300 billion climate finance goal agreement at COP29. We find that China's contributions to the development-oriented multilaterals covered have grown more than tenfold since 2010, reaching over $3 billion in 2024, but remain highly selective. Recent growth is concentrated in multilateral development bank concessional windows, especially the International Development Association, and in attributable multilateral development bank climate finance, which reached $5.3 billion by 2025. China remains a modest vertical fund donor and a limited voluntary UN funder. These trends, alongside China's likely transition to high-income status, matter for debates about multilateral burden sharing and institutional reform.

A decade ago, China helped launch two new multilateral development banks, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development

Xinyi Wu Think tank analysts say fastest growth in funding has been to multilateral development banks assisting low-income countries China's funding

We analyse the UK’s aid spending plans against the latest economic forecasts and find that the government is on course to miss its already-reduced 0.3 percent aid target by £412 million in 2027.

To read Darwin in the original today is rewarding because the breadth, depth and generosity of his thinking is such a blessed relief from hypocritical nastiness of the pharisees in places like Chatham House.