To shore up public support in G7 countries for Agenda 2030, we need to tell a better story about the SDGs. But what do G7 citizens currently think about development, and what messages will resonate?

Halfway to the deadline for achieving the 2030 Agenda, the September SDG Summit in New York aims to kickstart a ‘’new phase of accelerated progress.”

Italy will pick up the baton in January when it takes over as host of the 2024 G7 Summit, and has already pledged that the concerns of the Global South will be central.

But if the SDGs remain as relevant as ever, there are clear challenges around implementation.

Greater public backing of the Agenda can be a much-needed push for G7 policymakers to tackle these challenges, and this is where development communicators come in.

To help shore up public support for the SDGs, we need to tell a better story about them. And to do that, we first need to take stock of how people in G7 countries feel about international development co-operation.

Read on for the latest data on public attitudes, and what messages will resonate with G7 citizens around the SDG Summit and beyond.

Surveying G7 citizens

At DevCom, we took a look at public attitude surveys across G7 countries, conducted by a range of organisations.

One finding that emerged clearly from this meta analysis is that many G7 citizens acknowledge the importance of development aid.

In a 2022 survey of Italians by the Instituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and the University of Siena, 83% said aid was instrumental in supporting the economic development of partner countries.

According to PEW research from 2020, this concern extends to a willingness to consider other countries’ interests “even if it means making compromises” – an attitude shared by 69% of respondents in the UK, 65% in Germany, 58% in the US, and 52% in Italy. But compromise can mean being both idealistic and realistic.

In the 2022 Italian attitude survey by (IAI) and the University of Siena, for example, 69% of respondents said that aid can help partner countries become self-sufficient. At the same time, they cited aid as helping improve Italy’s international standing: 41% said an increase in ODA would benefit the country’s international prestige.

In France, when asked about ODA by Focus2030, citizens stressed both the benefits for countries receiving aid and highlighted advantages for donor countries on the international stage.

This dual sentiment was echoed in a 2020 Japanese government survey about the need for development cooperation. While 54% of respondents gave humanitarian reasons, others noted the benefits to Japan. Forty-two percent of respondents said development cooperation is necessary to increase international trust in Japan, while 42% said it would help advance Japan’s foreign policy. Another 38% cited benefits for Japan’s economy.

These findings suggest the value to G7 development communicators of framing development cooperation in a more nuanced, pragmatic way – as a joint enterprise, in the mutual interest of equal partners.

Shaping this narrative of mutual interest will also benefit from understanding how citizens in different countries think development money should be spent. For example, health falls squarely within the social issues that people have generally thought about in conjunction with aid programmes. But the COVID pandemic propelled health even higher up the list of development priorities. Similarly, the war in Ukraine brought “peace and security” to the top of citizens’ agenda.

DEL research shows how these priorities differ across G7 countries today: In Great Britain the economy is priority, while Germans are concerned about the war in Ukraine. In the US, misinformation and disinformation are key, while in France climate change tops the agenda.

But what is of priority today will not necessarily remain so tomorrow; concerns are context-specific and can change quickly. Development communicators need to keep up with these ongoing shifts if they want their messages to resonate.

In the end, the right approach depends on the target audience. Each country has its own mix of domestic and international priorities that affect public attitudes, and of course a wide range of constituencies within each country. Rather than promoting one narrative above another, communicators can strike a balance by highlighting the value of development cooperation from a range of perspectives.

Is ODA a success? Not so fast.

If G7 citizens see value in tackling global poverty, they are less convinced by the effectiveness of aid. In DEL surveys, only 36% of German respondents said development aid is effective or very effective; this figure drops to 29% in the US, 26% in Canada; 24% in France, and just 18% in Great Britain.

Italians, too, have concerns about ODA. In the 2022 IAI/ University of Sienna survey, 79% of respondents expressed a belief that most of the funds are embezzled in partner countries; 56% worried about making partner countries dependent on external aid.

Meanwhile DEL research suggests that only a minority of G7 citizens think their governments can actually help reduce global poverty (46% of respondents in the US, 45% in Germany, 40% in Great Britain, and 39% in France).

And it is not just governments that come in for scrutiny. When asked by DEL in 2023 how much they trusted development NGOs or charities, only 38% of German respondents, 29% of US respondents, and 28% of UK respondents reported “some or a great deal of trust.”

Nevertheless, despite these and other concerns, G7 citizens still see the value in ODA, and advocate either maintaining or increasing their country’s aid budget. DEL found this was the case for 65% of French respondents, 59% of German respondents, 55% of US respondents, and 51% of UK respondents.

Taken together, what does this all mean? If G7 citizens think that ODA may not be achieving as much as it could, they can still find reasons to support it.

Do G7 citizens personally engage in development efforts?

In short: not really. In 2023 July DEL surveys, only 24% of German respondents, 17% of French and US respondents, and 11% of UK respondents thought they personally could make a difference to reducing poverty in poor countries.

But do they think anyone else can help, either? In the same DEL surveys, respondents in Germany, the UK and France put more trust in the ability of “the UN and international organisations,” while US respondents put “businesses and corporations” first. Only a minority of citizens said they are actively engaged on international development issues.

The issue of personal efficacy is important because the degree to which someone thinks they can personally have an impact on a problem correlates closely with how much they donate. In fact, DEL research shows that convincing someone that they can have an effect increases their likelihood to donate from 17% to 44%.

Challenges, yes, but opportunities for development communicators

Ultimately, then, even as G7 citizens see the value of development aid and cooperation, they lack confidence – in governments, charities, and in their own abilities to affect change.

This is where communicators can begin, and the call to confidence about the development story should start with us.

We could begin by focusing on three narrative shifts:

• Don’t be afraid to highlight the strong public support for development cooperation in G7 countries.
• Ensure that campaigns offer a nuanced narrative of mutual benefit, and are tailored to the unique preferences of different countries and audiences.
• Help citizens feel a greater sense of personal efficacy, reframing the SDG narrative from a gloomy one of deadlines unmet to one that reinforces the fundamental value of the framework and the personal actions that they can take to make a difference.

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This post is published in partnership with Engagement Global, a German service agency working on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to engage civil society on issues of development co-operation.

Halfway to 2030, how do G7 citizens feel about development co-operation?