As the UK celebrates its first COVID-19 vaccinations, the JPIT enquiry inbox has been receiving emails from church members asking if lower-income nations will be able to access vaccines and, if so, how quickly. Licencing vaccines The first hurdle is licencing one or more vaccines for …
International Development
A spending review that will hit the poorest here and abroad
Spending Reviews and budgets are always about priorities, especially when times are hard. This week, the Chancellor chose to remove money from the poorest both here and abroad, whilst massively increasing spending on the military. On many levels, these are the wrong priorities. Each of these …
Nestlé confirms Fairtrade KitKat decision
Despite a widely supported and passionate campaign over the summer, the world's largest food company, Nestlé, has confirmed its June 2020 decision to drop the Fairtrade Mark from KitKat chocolate bars. We would like to extend our thanks to everyone who supported the #KeepKitKatFairtrade …
Security, defence, and development: an integrated review
In February of this year, the Prime Minister announced an integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy. It would be the largest review of these areas since the end of the Cold War. At JPIT we welcomed such a wide-ranging brief. The opportunities offered by an integrated …
Call on the Chancellor to Cancel the Debt
This week, finance ministers from the G20 countries will meet again, and high on their agenda will be responding to the pandemic. When these ministers met in April, many of you supported the call for the cancellation of debt payments for developing countries. This was followed by an agreement for …
Keep KitKat Fairtrade
Nestlé has announced that from October 2020 KitKats will no longer contain Fairtrade cocoa and sugar. Instead, Nestlé is moving to the promotion of its own Cocoa Plan and the Rainforest Alliance certification. As a result 27,000 sugar and cocoa farmers will lose the Fairtrade Premium …
Bad news for the poor? Why the abolition of DFID matters
JPIT’s Simeon Mitchell, who worked in the international development sector for 20 years, offers a personal perspective. It might sound a harmless, even sensible, change. Bringing together the UK’s Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to create a …
What does a global pandemic mean for developing nations?
For many of us, the world has become very small over the last few weeks. Confined by the walls of our homes, we’re simultaneously more isolated than ever from the world around us and yet more unified in shared experience. Similarly, the pandemic has demonstrated both how interconnected communities …
In defence of 0.7%
In response to government discussion around cutting the 0.7% foreign aid budget, Will discusses its relevance for today, and for the gospel. Few government departments are subject to such rigorous scrutiny over their spending as the Department for International Development (DfID). Nevertheless, …