The
British Government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
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created the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) on 1 April 2015, replacing the previous
Conflict (Prevention) Pool. It is a pool of money, over £1 billion per year, for tackling conflict and instability overseas.
Roughly half of the fund is categorised as government
official development assistance
Official development assistance (ODA) is a category used by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to measure aid, foreign aid. The DAC first adopted the concept in ...
(ODA).
Governance and purpose
The CSSF is overseen by the
National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
(NSC), whereas the previous Conflict Pool had been jointly controlled by the
Department for International Development
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, the
Ministry of Defence, and the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...
.
The
National Security Adviser A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils.
National sec ...
is the Senior Responsible Officer for the CSSF.
[
The CSSF supports delivery of the UK’s Building Stability Overseas Strategy and the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. The CSSF builds on the framework of the Conflict Pool by bringing together existing cross-departmental expertise and resources from across government.][ The CSSF funds a broader range of activities to help prevent conflict that affects vulnerable people in the world’s poorest countries, and tackle threats to British security and interests from instability overseas. This will include actions the UK delivers directly or through third parties to help prevent conflict and instability, and support post-conflict reconciliation.
Priorities for the Fund are set by the Government’s ]National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
, to ensure a stronger cross-departmental approach that draws on the synergy of defence, diplomacy, developmental assistance, security and intelligence. It is designed to enable the British Government to tackle the root causes of conflict abroad with various national and regional programmes including, developing human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
training, strengthening local police and judiciaries, and facilitating political reconciliation and local peace processes.
History
When the fund was created, the majority of its funding, £823 million out of £1,033 million, was transferred from the Department for International Development
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budget to the fund, £739 million of which was then administered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministries of fore ...
and £42 million by the Ministry of Defence. The 2015 UK Aid policy stated that the CSSF would be increased to £1.3 billion by 2019/20. The funds available through the previous Conflict Pool were £180 million in 2014/15, so there has been a very substantial funding increase in this area with the creation of the CSSF.
In 2016 Sir Mark Lyall Grant, National Security Adviser, stated the three countries on which most was spent were Afghanistan (£90 million), Syria (£60 million) and Somalia (£32 million), and that the fund had projects in more than 40 countries. A major spending area is related to the Syrian Civil War, including hiring private contractors to deliver "strategic communications and media operations support to the Syrian moderate armed opposition" – described as essentially running the "Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) ( ar, الجيش السوري الحر, al-jaysh as-Sūrī al-ḥur) is a loose faction in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces with the goal of bringing down the governm ...
press office". The Stabilisation Unit interdepartmental agency is funded by the CSSF.
The fund's first annual report was published in July 2017, under the auspices of the new National Security Adviser, Mark Sedwill, covering the financial year 2016/17. It stated that the five largest CSSF country programmes out of 70 were: Afghanistan (£90 million), Syria (£64 million), Somalia (£33.5 million), Jordan (£25.3 million) and Lebanon (£24 million). The spending in Jordan and Lebanon was largely related to the influx of refugees from the Syrian Civil War. The report states that more detail will be published during the following financial year.
The budget for the 2020/21 financial year was £1.37 billion. The four largest line-items, which exceeded half of the budget, were Peacekeeping (£388 million), Middle East and North Africa (£183 million), South Asia (£103 million) and MOD Afghan Security (£100 million).[
]
2017 Committee on the National Security Strategy inquiry
The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy
The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) is a joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, formed to "monitor the implementation and development" of the United Kingdom Government's National Security Strategy". It ...
launched an inquiry examining the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund in May 2016.
On 2 November 2016 Lord McConnell criticised the fact there was no up-to-date public strategy for the fund, as the 2011 Building Stability Overseas Strategy has never been updated.[ In November 2016 the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy inquiry asked Sir ]Mark Lyall Grant
Sir Mark Justin Lyall Grant, (born 29 May 1956) is a former senior British diplomat who was previously the United Kingdom's National Security Adviser and Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations.
Education and e ...
, the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils.
National sec ...
, to disclose details of the fund’s spending. This followed concern in the media that the fund was causing more of the UK aid budget to be spent on defence and foreign policy objectives.
The inquiry issued its report on 6 February 2017. The government had refused to disclose which countries were receiving money under the CSSF, and only a small number of individual projects were disclosed. The government stated that some projects must remain secret for security reasons. The committee reported that the fund had opaque objectives and achievements, and lacked accountability. The committee reported that "There is a risk that the CSSF is being used as a ‘slush fund’ for projects that may be worthy, but which do not collectively meet the needs of UK national security". There was particular criticism of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, both for its lack of procurement expertise and outdated understanding of the political causes of armed conflict. The committee concluded it could not "provide parliamentary accountability for taxpayers’ money spent via the CSSF." It recommended a single Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
minister should be responsible for the fund's spending.
In 2017 the Independent Commission for Aid Impact
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) is an independent non-departmental public body tasked with the scrutiny of British Official development assistance (ODA).
Launched in May 2011 by then Secretary of State for International Developm ...
started a review of the CSSF, with the final report due in Spring 2018.
See also
* Conscience: Taxes for Peace not War
*Global Justice Now
Global Justice Now, formerly known as the World Development Movement (WDM), is a membership organisation based in the United Kingdom which campaigns on issues of global justice and development in the Global South.
The organisation produces re ...
*Reprieve (organisation)
Reprieve is a nonprofit organization of international lawyers and investigators whose stated goal is to "fight for the victims of extreme human rights abuses with legal action and public education". Their main focus is on the death penalty, inde ...
*Westminster Foundation for Democracy
The Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) is a United Kingdom non-departmental public body set up to support democratic institutions overseas. It was established on 26 February 1992 and registered as a company limited by guarantee in the U ...
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund: an overview
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund: programme summaries
The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund
Global Justice Now
Global Justice Now, formerly known as the World Development Movement (WDM), is a membership organisation based in the United Kingdom which campaigns on issues of global justice and development in the Global South.
The organisation produces re ...
, December 2017
Foreign relations of the United Kingdom
Public bodies and task forces of the United Kingdom government
Department for International Development
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)