• AS the general election floods our TV screens, fills up our news feeds, and takes over conversations, we can easily become focused on Britain acting in isolation.

But this is not how it works.

As a global society we do not work independently from each other but instead are one collective.

Emphasis must be placed on foreign aid, benefiting living conditions for those in poor countries as well as improving quality of life here in the United Kingdom.

The Borgen Project is an international non-profit that operates to make global poverty a focus of UK foreign policy.

It serves to educate, mobilise, and advocate for important legislation to be passed, such as the ODA, official development assistance, in order to improve living conditions for people in poor countries.

Legislation such as this raises the standards of life for those most in need but also has beneficial, localised, effects within UK.

Distributing foreign aid can generate new jobs and markets in Britain and strengthen national security through political stability abroad.

Foreign aid is an investment: giving to a place of need with the prospect of lucrative long-term return investments to the UK.

In the lead-up to the general election, focus on foreign aid benefits us all. Other issues will always seem more pressing given it is so easy to become isolated by our own problems that are framed through a lens of the UK working alone.

But we must look outwardly.

In the meantime, citizens can take action by contacting local politicians. Here we must not give up on the impact and voice we can have in this upcoming election to call on Sir Keir Starmer, our candidate, to make foreign aid a priority.

MILLAMAY GARROW, NW1
Borgen Project Ambassador