One of the most depressing things about the international development world is the way how it is often the most uninnovative development charities that get the support of government. Those charities have become so institutionalised, they all sound the the same and say the same things. They all support the failed top-down approaches to development aid (Africa, after all, has received six Marshall Plans of foreign aid and its economy has stagnated). They all have the same opinions on trade. While the Thatcher revolution kicked out most of 1950s orthodoxy, the development sector has remained stuck in the past.

The smaller charities taking a more enterprise-based approach to development find themselves treated by central government as second class citizens. They find it difficult developing partnerships with the Department for International Development. They have their grant applications rejected, while Big Charities like Christian Aid are able to squander millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to run anti-capitalistic campaigns.

Iain Duncan Smith criticised the collectivisation of charities more widely in a speech last year:

In contrast to the many smaller charities I meet, there appears to be a striking uniformity of worldview in Big Charity. People and organisations act on the basis of their beliefs. It appears to me that the homogeneity of worldview in Big Charity produces striking similarities in both your caring and campaigning work. Thus although championing diversity is a core aim of most individual large voluntary bodies, collectively Big Charity is a monochrome grouping.

As Big Charity gets ever closer to big government, it increasingly mirrors its thinking and behaviour. State bureaucracies feel threatened by new thinking and different approaches. I fear that Big Charity has coalesced around narrowly accepted ways of thinking. So I am challenging you this evening as to whether you are fully open to learning from the successes of other countries and of much smaller charities who are thinking and acting outside the box with great success.

IDS has hit the nail on the head. DFID really needs to rework its approach to partnering with the charitable sector.