Building awareness and understanding of development in the UK
DFID's focus, as identified in the 1997 White Paper on International Development, is a commitment to the
Millennium Development Goals. Much of this involves direct poverty reduction work, through our development activities, and work with multilateral institutions such as the
 World Bank, the United Nations and the
European Union. But the White Paper also underlines the importance of building public support for development across the UK.
The White Paper calls for increased public understanding of our global mutual dependence and the need for international development. It also calls for every child to be educated about development issues, so that they can understand the key global considerations that will shape their lives.
Our 1999 strategy paper, 'Building Support for
Development', sets out how we aim to make progress, and to measure its success. Under the heading 'Development Awareness', four priority areas of work have been identified:
- the formal education sector;
- the media;
- business and trade unions; and
- the various faith communities.
In addition, we are also looking more widely at how we can achieve change across society, including through adult education and youth work.
Monitoring public opinion and evaluating individual activities is central to measuring success in building support for development. DFID has undertaken initial baseline surveys testing the attitudes and behaviour of the UK public in relation to our work. This work will be followed up at regular intervals. We are also monitoring young people's attitudes, largely to measure our effectiveness in the formal education sector.
The DFID publication 'Enabling Effective Support' sets out DFID's strategy of support for the global dimension in education. The Enabling Effective Support initiative has been specifically designed to provide teachers with more effective and sustained support to incorporate a global dimension into their teaching.
It supports the development of locally owned strategies to achieve more comprehensive, high quality support to teachers for the delivery of the global dimension. Each strategy will focus on how global perspectives in the curriculum can be effectively delivered and supported, particularly through new partnership and co-operative ways of working; and also how to access resources that support work in this area. Enabling Effective Support is a partnership initiative developed and funded by DFID and supported by the education ministries and development education networks across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
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