New campaigners are often mystified by the jargon used to describe the concepts and institutions that play a part in ending global poverty. This blog post by long-standing Results volunteer Ricci Downard explains all, including how grassroots campaigning actually works!
Jargon Cracker
Here are some common terms and acronyms you may run across in campaigning with Results UK:
Activism; Advocacy; Campaigning: broadly synonymous terms for what Results UK grassroots volunteers get up to – explained below!
Dev Tracker: a website that lists the Government’s development programmes and ensures transparency of the development budget.
FCDO: The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is the UK Government department that handles our Official Development Assistance or ODA. It is run by the Foreign Secretary, and also includes the Minister for Development.
Global South / Global North – terms used to refer to wealthier / less wealthy nations. Other terms sometimes used include developed / developing countries; LDCs (Least Developed Countries); LMICs (Low-and Middle-Income Countries).
GNI: Gross National Income (in 2024 the UK’s GNI was approximately £2.7 trillion). ODA is often expressed as a tiny proportion of that and in 1970, it was recommended that so-called developed countries spend at least 0.7% of their GNI on ODA (see below).
ICAI: Independent Commission for Aid Impact – a body that scrutinises the way ODA is spent, reporting to Parliament’s International Development Committee – see below.
IDC: The International Development Committee is a group of parliamentarians whose role is to scrutinise the Government’s development priorities and ensure that its development budget is spent efficiently and effectively.
NGO: Non-Governmental Organisation, typically a non-profit organisation that operates outside government control, locally, nationally or internationally, to address the public good, e.g. campaigning groups like Results UK, charities like Oxfam, Save The Children, etc.
ODA: The budget for international development is called Official Development Assistance. The UK currently spends around 0.5% of its GNI on ODA and in Autumn 2024, the Government allocated £13.7 billion to ODA for 2025-6.
Some multilateral funds (see below) that are relevant to Results’ advocacy:
CEPI: the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. A partnership that exists to rapidly develop new vaccines that could be rolled out in the event of a future pandemic. Their target is to do so in just 100 days.
Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance: Gavi is responsible for sourcing, distributing and administering existing vaccines for a range of common diseases recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Global Fund: the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It is the biggest global provider of resources to fight the three diseases.
GPE: The Global Partnership for Education, the largest global fund solely dedicated to transforming education in lower-income countries.
GPEI: the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a public-private partnership whose goal is to eradicate polio worldwide.
Some other partnerships relevant to Results’ advocacy on global health and education:
ICAN: International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition, a coalition of NGOs that work together to make progress on nutrition.
N4G: Nutrition for Growth: A political process that enables Governments to address the global malnutrition crisis collectively.
Send My Friend to School: A campaign run in schools across the UK for access to education around the world, part of the Global Campaign for Education.
Some big international actors:
G7: A powerful economic and political group including the UK, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
G20: similar to the G7 but with 20 nations, giving it more legitimacy through a wider range of voices, often discussing development issues.
IDA: International Development Association: a multilateral fund within the World Bank.
IMF: International Monetary Fund: This often provides loans to countries of the Global South for development purposes.
OECD: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is an international organisation consisting of 38 member nations that is responsible for the international criteria for what kinds of government spending count as Official Development Assistance.
World Bank: originally called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, its role is to provide financial support to international development efforts.
Multilateral organisations
These are organisations to which governments around the world contribute funds for collective action. We at Results UK believe in the power of multilateral funds, for example the World Bank’s International Development Association, described above, the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria, and the Global Partnership for Education. Multilaterals are often better than the UK Government working alone with one Global South partner country at a time, in the following ways:
- Multilaterals have a global reach, so that programmes can be run anywhere in the world.
- Multilaterals become centres of expertise, attracting the best, collaborating with businesses, universities, civil society organisations, and setting standards and global policies.
- They can run cross-border programmes and coordination: very important for health, e.g. vaccinations.
- They have more leverage, e.g. negotiating lower prices for medicines.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
In 2015 the 192 member states of the United Nations (almost every country in the world) signed up to the SDGs. There are seventeen goals, in summary: end poverty; end hunger; health and well-being; education; gender equality; access to water; access to energy; employment; infrastructure; end inequality; good cities; sustainable consumption and production; reduce climate change; protect seas and oceans; protect land; strong institutions; global partnerships. You can read everything about them, including tracking their implementation, here.
Results UK and the UK Government
We use our voices to influence political decisions that will bring about an end to poverty, globally. We believe that an end to poverty is required – that’s self-evident; that it’s possible; and that if we do not campaign for it, our politicians may not deliver it. As citizens of the UK, a democracy, we are the ones with the power. An important part of our activity at Results UK is encouraging each other to use our political voice.
The relevant part of the UK Government for our purposes is usually the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, home to the Foreign Secretary and the Development Minister. They have a big budget (called ‘Official Development Assistance’, or ‘ODA’, see the ‘Jargon Cracker’ above). If we do our campaigning well, this budget will be spent on things that genuinely reduce poverty around the world, in an efficient way.
What excites me about campaigning with Results UK is that when we have a campaign win, we influence the direction of very large amounts of money. At the end of 2024, for example, we influenced the UK Government in their decision to commit £1.98 billion over three years to the World Bank’s ‘International Development Association’ (IDA), a fund whose purpose is to make financial resources available to low-income countries. If Results UK had not campaigned on this, then maybe several millions, or tens of millions less would have gone into ending poverty that way. There aren’t many things you can do with your spare time that yield that kind of impact!
Results UK campaigner and fellow member of the Results Scotland Group Lucy Owens wrote this blog on the World Bank’s IDA fund.
For more on what makes Results UK so powerful see this explanation of how our advocacy works.
Writing Letters
The bulk of Results UK’s campaigning is by letter-writing, because a personal letter to an MP or government minister has been proven over time to be an extremely effective tool. Here’s how to make a start:
Step 1: Find out who your MP is. Type your postcode into the ‘They Work For You’ website.
Step 2: Find out who your MP really is! There’s plenty of material about them on ‘They Work For You’; they may also have their own Facebook page or website; or you could subscribe to their newsletter if they have one, or visit their drop-in surgery.
Step 3: Read Results UK’s handy advice on letter-writing. If you don’t have time for steps 2 and 3 above, just get on and start writing your letter. If you’re true to yourself, you’ll probably smash it out of the park! You can hand-write an old fashioned paper letter; you can write a formal looking letter in Doc or PDF, and attach it to an email; or you can just write straight into an email. It’s up to you.
Happy campaigning!