The Guardian: Aid groups warn Boris Johnson against combining DFID with Foreign Office
“A coalition of aid groups including the British Red Cross, CAFOD, and Oxfam GB has warned Boris Johnson that to abolish the Department for International Development would suggest Britain is ‘turning our backs on the world’s poorest people.’ One climate diplomacy expert said it would be ‘political suicide’ to merge DFID with the Foreign Office in 2020, the same year the U.K. is hosting the U.N. climate summit, since the move would tie up senior civil servants when they were most needed to tackle the response to the climate crisis. Sources inside DFID have told the Guardian that they fully expect the department to be merged with the FCO after Brexit…” (McVeigh, 12/19).