Aggregated dataset for 'Mapping the ‘business of development’: The geography of UK for-profit development contractors'

Data for paper in Finance and Space, 1(1), 489–493 (Dec 2024)

This database, which was collated from open and proprietary datasets before being cleaned, includes 915 contracts awarded to UK-based private sector contractors by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (formerly Department for International Development), between 1st January 2012 and 31st December 2022. The data includes contract award totals by firm, and the registered addresses and regional locations of firms that win UK aid contract awards.

Abstract

This financial visualisation (FinVis) shows the geographical distribution of the UK’s top for-profit development contractors. Using a novel database, we map the location and value of 915 contracts awarded to UK-based private sector contractors by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (formerly the Department for International Development). It shows the geography of firms capturing aid finance, concentrated in London and the southeast of England. It contributes to understanding ‘aid contractor assemblages’ (cf. Roberts, S. M. 2014. Development Capital: USAID and the Rise of Development Contractors. Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 104(5), 1030–1051), and the knowledge economies and networks of firms which have become increasingly powerful in shaping a market around the ‘business of development’.