This is a critical time in the global fight against poverty. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty over the last decade, thanks in part to debt relief and increases in aid. In Sierra Leone, DFID has made a major contribution to consolidating peace as well as maintaining economic stability and supporting economic growth. Since 2002, post war economic growth averaged around 10% and national inflation averaging at 12.5%.

But the global recession, the climate crisis and ongoing conflict and fragility in many countries threaten to turn back the progress we have seen. The global recession alone could trap as many as 90 million people worldwide in extreme poverty. This will make it harder for countries like Sierra Leone to maintain strong levels of economic growth.

That is why the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development has published a new strategic vision for the way we approach international development: ‘Building our Common Future’. It shows how we will keep the promises we have made to increase aid to developing countries.

We will dedicate 0.7 per cent of national income to development assistance by 2013. By next year our assistance will be equivalent to 0.56 per cent of national income – in line with the European Union’s collective commitment. And we will, by next year, have nearly trebled our bilateral and multilateral aid to Africa since 2004.

Half of our future global bilateral aid will be invested in public services. This level of investment will help 8 million children to go to school across, and help to provide 50 million bed nets to protect people from Malaria.

In the midst of this recession, we will help to protect 50 million poor people, in more than twenty countries, from the worst effects of the downturn. Because growth is the exit route out of poverty and aid dependence, we will also do more to give people economic opportunities – for instance through our international growth centre, which will give developing countries access to global experts in creating sustainable growth.

The climate crisis represents one of the greatest threats to poverty reduction. We will ensure that new and additional finance is made available – over and above our aid commitments – to tackle climate change, and we will use up to 10% of all UK aid on climate programmes. We will invest in the knowledge and tools needed for adaptation, low carbon development and the protection of forests.

One third of the world’s poorest people live in conflict-affected or fragile countries. So at least half of all our new direct aid will go to those countries. We will help provide security and access to justice as basic services, we will do more to protect women from violence and we will create jobs benefiting 7.5 million people in the world ’ s poorest countries. DFID has already been doing this in Sierra Leone through the Justice Sector Development Programme and will continue doing so with even more focus on access to justice for ordinary people.

We will work more with international institutions like the United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank in all of these areas – but we will demand more of them too.

We will work harder than ever to ensure that every pound of UK aid contributes towards direct and tangible results – fulfilling our pledges on aid effectiveness made in the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action, and pushing others to do the same.

We remain committed in the fight against global poverty because it is morally right. At the start of the twenty-first century, it is also clear that the future prosperity and security of all peoples across the world are more closely bound together than ever before.

The economic, climate and conflict crises that threaten the world’s poorest people threaten us all. But working together, we can build a more prosperous, safe and sustainable world.