Department for International Development
United Kingdom government ministerial department
The Department for International Development (DFID) was a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid internationally.
The DFID was founded by the UK government in 1997. The department was established by the Labour government under Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The goal of the department was "to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty". DFID was headed by the United Kingdom's secretary of state for international development. The position was last held by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who assumed office on 13 February 2020 and served until the department was dissolved on 2 September 2020. In a 2010 report by the Development Assistance Committee, the department was described as "an international development leader in times of global crisis". The UK aid logo is often used to publicly acknowledge DFID's development programmes are funded by UK taxpayers.
The DFID's main programme areas of work were education, health, social services, water supply and sanitation, government and civil society, economic sector (including infrastructure, production sectors and developing planning), environment protection, research, and humanitarian assistance.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Department for International Development” as united Kingdom government ministerial department. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as united Kingdom government ministerial department. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2748702. VIAF identifies the subject as 153826428. The Library of Congress control number is n2008208841. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 2020 and 2010.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Department for International Development” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.