Policy paper

UK–South Africa development partnership summary, July 2023

Published 17 July 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

© Crown copyright 2023

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Introduction

The Strategy for International Development (IDS) places development at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy. It sets out a new approach to development, anchored in patient, long-term partnerships tailored to the needs of the countries we work with, built on mutual accountability and transparency. This approach goes beyond aid and brings the combined power of the UK’s global economic, scientific, security and diplomatic strengths to our development partnerships. Our 4 priorities are to deliver honest, reliable investment, provide women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed, step up our life-saving humanitarian work, and take forward our work on climate change, nature, and global health. The Integrated Review Refresh (IR23) reiterates that sustainable development is central to UK foreign policy and sets out how the UK will go further and faster on development to reduce poverty and reinvigorate progress towards the SDGs. This Country Development Partnership Summary details how the IDS and IR23 will be put into practice with South Africa.

Country context

South Africa is an important regional and international player. It advocates for African interests in international fora as the only African nation in groupings such as the G20 and BRICS [footnote 1]. South Africa is also the largest African investor into the continent and a key trading partner particularly for SACU [footnote 2] and SADC [footnote 3] countries, as well as a top migrant destination and source of remittances. It is therefore critical to Africa’s economic stability.

South Africa continues to face significant development challenges: 63% of the population lives below the poverty line (World Bank); high youth unemployment (66.5% for 15- to 24-year-olds according to the World Bank); high income inequality (Gini coefficient [footnote 4] of 0.67); and, gender-based violence, with a femicide rate 5 times the global average (World Health Organization (WHO)).

South Africa’s National Development Plan 2030, developed in 2012, sets out how the government aims to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. It is aligned with the SDGs agreed in 2015, and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

The UK and South Africa have an historic relationship, including strong people-to-people and trade links. Some 400,000 British nationals visit South Africa each year. South Africa is the UK’s largest trading partner in Africa, accounting for almost a third (32.8%) of all UK trade with the continent.

The UK and South Africa share common development interests and values, including promoting inclusive economic growth; climate and energy security; driving global health security and universal health coverage; tackling inequality; and, protecting the rights of the most vulnerable.

During South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State Visit to the UK in November 2022, the 2 governments agreed 8 new partnerships across health, science, green energy technology, and economic cooperation.

A Foreign Minister-level Bilateral Forum is held every 2 years to set strategic priorities for our partnership.

The UK’s development offer in South Africa

The UK’s development engagement supports South Africa’s long-term ambitions to tackle poverty and inequality in line with its National Development Plan; and, to encourage collaboration on global and regional development. We use the country Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget to pay for technical advice to national and provincial government, and to support local organisations such as the Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide Fund.

The UK and South Africa work together to deliver the following development priorities, both bilaterally and internationally:

  1. a just transition to a low-carbon, climate resilient economy

  2. inclusive, and sustainable economic growth

  3. health systems strengthening and pandemic preparedness

  4. promoting gender equality and women’s rights

  5. tackling and reducing corruption

These priorities reflect the aims of the IDS, including to:

  • deliver honest and reliable investment – supporting partner countries to grow their economies sustainably
  • provide women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed
  • take forward our work on climate change, nature, and global health

They also support the UK’s International Women and Girls Strategy (2023 to 2030) and its priority themes, the 3 Es:

  • educating girls
  • empowering women and girls and championing their health and rights
  • ending gender-based violence

The UK’s development activities are designed and delivered in partnership with line ministries and provincial governments. The UK works closely with bilateral (eg France, Germany, the EU, and the US), and multilateral (eg World Bank, African Development Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations (UN)) development partners.

The development partnership includes collaboration between UK and South African institutions, for example on science, research, technology, and innovation, and is complemented by commercial deals and investment, for example in renewable energy and infrastructure, including in partnership with British Investment International (BII) and UK Export Finance (UKEF).

Key programmes

In financial year 2023 to 2024 and financial year 2024 to 2025, the UK is projected to spend £19 million ODA through its country budget on the following programmes.

Programme Expected outcomes Value [footnote 5]
Just Energy Transition Support Delivery of the Just Energy Transition Partnership, including mitigating the impact on communities of the transition from coal to renewable power and leveraging private finance and investment. £5 million
Urban Resilience Enhanced urban policy planning and improved service delivery, particularly for vulnerable groups across cities in 6 of South Africa’s 9 provinces. £8 million
Skills for Work Strengthened pathways between education and employment, increasing access to employment for women and supporting priority sectors to improve the quality and relevance of training including through green skills. £5 million
International Economic Partnership Strengthened collaboration in the Rules Based International System to promote regional economic development. South Africa’s capacity to deliver its economic reform priorities strengthened. £4 million
Southern Africa Trade Capacity of businesses built to take advantage of the Economic Partnership Agreement, with a focus on women, youth, and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). £8.2 million
Health Systems Strengthening Partnership Strengthened health systems and capacity to enable effective progress towards achieving Universal Health Coverage and pandemic preparedness £5 million
Demography and Gender Improved use of demographic data in development planning. Strengthened UK-South Africa collaboration on women’s rights. Increased capacity of women’s rights organisations to tackle gender-based violence. £3 million
Tackling Corruption Enhanced capacity of South African authorities to tackle corruption. £2.3 million

The UK also supports South Africa’s development priorities through other bilateral programmes, managed by FCDO centrally or by other UK ministries. For example, we provide technical assistance to strengthen capacity at national, provincial, and municipal levels to enable South Africa to meet its Nationally Determined Contributions targets and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. We also provide technical assistance to encourage sustainable, affordable, safe, and secure digital inclusion; build cybersecurity capacity; and support digital start-ups. The UK also supports science, technology, research, and innovation collaboration through a range of funding mechanisms, delivering projects in agriculture, space, health, oceans economy, and emerging technologies.

Financial information

Initial allocations have been set internally to deliver the priorities set out in the International Development Strategy (May 2022) and the Integrated Review Refresh 2023, based on the FCDO’s Spending Review 2021 settlement.

The department’s spending plans for the period 2022 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 have been revisited to ensure HM Government continues to spend around 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA. This was in the context of the significant and unexpected costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan escape oppression and conflict and find refuge in the UK, and others seeking asylum. The Government provided additional resources of £1 billion in 2022 to 2023 and £1.5 billion in 2023 to 2024 to help meet these unanticipated costs. The Government remains committed to returning ODA spending to 0.7% of GNI when the fiscal situation allows, in line with the approach confirmed by the House of Commons in July 2021.

The country development partnership summaries include the breakdown of programme budgets allocated to individual countries for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. These allocations are indicative and subject to revision as, by its nature, the department’s work is dynamic. Programme allocations are continually reviewed to respond to changing global needs, including humanitarian crises, fluctuations in GNI and other ODA allocation decisions.

It should be noted that these figures do not reflect the full range of UK ODA spending in these individual countries as they do not include spend delivered via core contributions to multilateral organisations, or regional programmes delivered by the FCDO’s central departments. Other UK Government departments also spend a large amount of ODA overseas. Details of ODA spent by other UK government departments can be found in their Annual Report and Accounts and the Statistics for International Development.

FCDO ODA allocation

Figure 1. Financial year 2023 to 2024 to financial year 2024 to 2025 planned spend against UK International Development Strategy priorities: Women and Girls, 34%; British Investment Partnerships, 34%; Climate Change, Nature and Global Health, 32%.

These programmes are monitored through individual oversight mechanisms in coordination with relevant South African ministries. The overall portfolio is reviewed through the Bilateral Forum.

Allocated ODA budget financial year 2023 to 2024: £5.9 million.

Indicative ODA budget financial year 2024 to 2025: £13 million.

Supporting information sources

  1. BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. ↩

  2. Southern Africa Customs Union: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa. ↩

  3. Southern Africa Development Community: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, united Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. ↩

  4. The Gini coefficient is a measure of the way in which different groups of households receive differing shares of total household income. ↩

  5. Each programme is typically implemented over 3 to 4 years. The value shown in the table is the total budget, not forecast spend in 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. ↩

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