The speech published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office recasts a familiar slogan into a more exact policy position. The Deputy Prime Minister argues that a late-1990s model of international development no longer fits a world shaped by overlapping crises, sharper geopolitical competition and stronger demands from Global South governments for a greater say over finance and decision-making. According to the speech, this is not presented as an abstract foreign policy debate. Ministers link development reform directly to UK interests, arguing that pandemics, extreme weather and global economic shocks are felt domestically through public costs, damage to infrastructure and pressure on living standards. The Government's position is that international development, climate resilience and economic security now sit within the same policy frame.
In that context, 'shifting power' is defined less as a rhetorical change and more as a change in who sets priorities. The speech says donor governments and institutions should align behind country platforms where partner states choose them, and should move towards co-creation, co-design and co-decision on the use of development resources. The UK's endorsement of the call for locally led development is presented as a test of whether agencies are prepared to give partners control over what is funded, where money goes and how programmes are run. For officials, multilateral agencies and delivery organisations, that would mean a change in programme design rather than a simple change in language. Funding decisions would need to follow national plans more closely, and local institutions would need a stronger role in governance, procurement and monitoring. The speech's message is that legitimacy comes from decision-making authority, not from consultation after the main choices have already been made.
A second strand of the speech is a wider whole-of-society approach. Government, business, philanthropy and civil society are all named as part of the same development effort, with explicit reference to marginalised groups. The Government also restates its feminist approach to development and foreign policy, describing women and girls, and women's rights organisations, as key actors in growth, peace and stability. Read as policy, that points to a broader set of partners around country plans and not only around donor projects. It also suggests that representation will be judged by who has standing in programme design and funding channels, especially for groups that are often present in consultation exercises but absent from final decisions. The speech places this alongside state-led cooperation rather than in opposition to it.
The third element is fiscal resilience. The speech argues that durable development depends on countries being able to raise more of their own finance, spend it well, borrow responsibly and manage shocks without surrendering policy control. In one of its clearest lines, the speech says control over finance is control over sovereignty. That argument is paired with a sharp passage on illicit finance and corruption. Citing estimates of between $800 billion and $2 trillion in illicit financial flows each year, or roughly 2 to 5 per cent of global GDP, the Deputy Prime Minister says money that should support public services is instead captured by kleptocrats and their networks, including through assets in London. The practical message is that development policy and the UK's anti-corruption enforcement agenda can no longer be treated as separate files.
The speech also gives the City of London a defined role. Ministers say the UK wants the City to be a hub for global development finance as well as green finance, and that they are working with investors on the barriers that limit capital flows into developing economies. This sits beside the emphasis on public finance rather than replacing it. For the policy community, the significance is straightforward: the Government is trying to join development, climate and investment policy more tightly. If that approach is followed through, the test will be whether official tools, risk-sharing arrangements and project pipelines are changed in a way that makes private capital more willing to back long-term investment in lower-income markets.
Beyond individual programmes, the speech makes the case for institutional reform. It argues that Global South countries should have a stronger voice across the debt system, multilateral banks and other bodies that shape development finance. The examples cited are the new Borrowers' Platform, the World Bank Shareholding Review, reform of the UN Security Council to include permanent African representation as well as India, Germany, Brazil and Japan, and a reform review of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. The line here is that representation is not a symbolic question. It affects who sets lending terms, whose priorities are reflected in global rules and how quickly institutions change when crises hit. The speech also presses for development banks, climate funds and other bodies to work more systematically together, with collaboration treated as a standing rule rather than an occasional response.
Climate finance is presented as the area where these arguments meet. According to the speech, there is no credible development strategy without climate action, and no viable climate strategy without development. Ministers say the present finance system must move faster, improve access for poorer and more vulnerable countries, and put communities on the front line of climate impacts closer to decisions on spending. That leaves a clear benchmark for the UK's reform agenda. If 'shifting power' is to mean more than conference language, it will need to produce visible changes in who controls funding, how multilateral institutions are governed, how quickly climate and development finance reaches local actors and how firmly the UK acts against illicit wealth passing through its own jurisdiction. On the Government's account, trust and effectiveness now depend on that shift being made real.