Keir Starmer promised at the UN last September that the UK would “be a leading contributor to development”. Just five months later few expected an announcement that could result in UK aid spending falling to its lowest level this century.
Overseas development aid will fall from 0.5% of the UK’s gross national income to 0.3% – a cut of about £6bn – in order to pay for increased defence spending.
The cut will have dire consequences, according to the groups delivering much of that aid. Describing it as a betrayal of poorer countries, Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, says: “This will cost lives.”
Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, resigned over the decision on Friday.
UK aid funds projects offering humanitarian assistance and health services, as well as work with communities suffering the frontline effects of the climate crisis and conflict.
The announcement follows the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to US aid, which, among other crushing effects on the world’s poorest people, have resulted in abrupt halts to life-saving HIV drug programmes in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Humanitarian work in refugee camps, hospitals and healthcare centres has stopped in many of the 177 countries helped by USAid, while funding for groups working on the frontline of the climate crisis has vanished. Human rights and independent journalism organisations also face closure.
It is also part of a wider trend – a pattern of cuts to aid spending in countries that have historically been leading donors, including Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Canada looks as if it will follow suit, if its Conservative party wins forthcoming elections.
The scale and speed of the cuts now facing the sector is unprecedented, and decisions made in response will have wide-ranging implications for global health and security for generations to come. Neither philanthropy nor domestic funding within countries receiving the aid is likely to be able to fill the vast gaps left as western countries withdraw.
Jean-Michel Grand, director of Action Against Hunger UK, says the world is seeing a “radical politicisation of aid” in which it was talked about in terms of trade, prosperity and security, with “the whole ambition of addressing poverty very secondary and not even mentioned”.
Internationally agreed norms, such as respect for humanitarian laws or agreement on important development targets, are at stake, says Grand. And the shift posed ethical questions for aid organisations, he adds. “What are the conditions that are going to be attached to getting a grant [in the future]?”
Since 1970, the UN has set a target for countries to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on overseas development assistance. The target has since been accepted by successive British governments and, after a surge in investment during the Blair and Brown years, was achieved by the UK in 2013 for the first time, and made a statutory duty in 2015.
The British public still cares, says Grand, pointing to generous donations to Disasters Emergency Committee appeals. But aid has become an “easy target”, with political rhetoric that “leads to some doubts within the public about how useful or impactful aid is.
“Clearly, none of these decisions, whether the British, the American, the German, could have happened if there would have been a political risk for the government,” says Grand.
Aid organisations must take some responsibility for failing to make the case, he says. Now the sector will need to “rethink … the aid structure that we want to have, the role of international NGOs, and what are we standing for”, he says. “What happens to the international NGOs, etc – that is not the most important thing. What is important is more the goal – how are we going to alleviate poverty, malnutrition, and how are we going to try to mitigate the risk of future conflict, because of poverty, because of hunger, because of climate change? And it’s not by disinvesting.”
The volte-face by the US and others not only causes financial issues for NGOs, but damages delicate relationships built up over years, Grand says.
In 2021, Boris Johnson’s Tory government reduced spending to 0.5%, with parliament voting that the 0.7% commitment could be suspended until certain fiscal tests were met.
An impact assessment at the time conceded that those cuts would mean thousands of deaths, including of malnourished or unvaccinated children, and women left without safe abortion services.
In its manifesto, and repeatedly in power, Labour had promised to restore spending to 0.7% “as soon as fiscal circumstances allow”. It insists that commitment is still true.
However, in recent years, UK governments have been spending about 40% of the aid budget in the UK itself to cover housing and administrative costs for refugees.
“The lowest ever share of income the UK spent on international aid was in 1999, at 0.24%,” says Ian Mitchell, senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. However, at that time, “we didn’t used to count refugee costs in aid”.
Even if refugee costs can be brought down to £2bn, less than half the £4.3bn spent last year, Mitchell says, “the actual amount of non-refugee aid will fall to an all-time low”.
There are now calls for Home Office spending on refugees to be subject to a cap so that true international aid spending can be protected.
Aid can be delivered bilaterally, in an arrangement directly between countries, or multilaterally, through organisations funded by several countries and donors.
The cuts come at the same time as many leading multilateral aid organisations, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, are seeking renewed funding. The impact on those efforts of the trend for lower aid spending is as yet unclear.
The US under Trump is pulling back from multilateral organisations including the World Health Organization and UNAids. Mitchell said the UK did, however, seem committed to multilateral efforts – it has committed to co-host fundraising efforts for the Global Fund this year, alongside South Africa.
More globally, however, “there are pressures to spend bilaterally and geopolitically”, he says. “And what I think is one of the really interesting things is that in the cold war, aid went up, precisely because countries were seeking to influence others. And so it’s interesting that in what is effectively a rerun of the cold war, exactly the opposite is happening – at least [in] the west.”
China does not seem to be stepping back from aid projects, although Dr Githinji Gitahi, chief executive of Amref Health Africa, says: “China has been more focused on infrastructure. So if they can fill that gap, then you have to look for other partners for services like health workforce and commodities.”
Starmer’s announcement will not see UK spending stop suddenly, but it will take effect over the next two years. However, the US withdrawal has been abrupt and chaotic. American spending accounts for 50% of all development assistance to Africa and will be “difficult to replace”, says Gitahi.
Speaking as hundreds of notices of termination started to arrive at HIV projects funded by the US in sub-Saharan Africa, Prof Linda-Gail Bekker of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in South Africa, said it would mean “deep trouble” for the region.
“It lets the tiger out of the cage again [via an uncontrolled HIV epidemic], if you want to see it from a purely global threat point of view,” she says.
And while there was the temptation to look for other funders around the world, “there’s real concern about where Europe and other countries are themselves”, she says. “We see no way out of this other than needing to see our own governments fill this gap.”
That is likely to be hard for many countries struggling with debt and lower budgets. Gitahi says that even if African governments moved towards allocating 15% of their budgets to health spending – an African Union target – “15% of an elephant is very different from 15% of a chicken. And here we’re talking about 15% of a chicken.”
Starmer says the UK is entering an era where “hard power” needed to take precedence, choosing defence spending over aid because “the national security of our country must always come first”.
Care International UK’s chief executive, Helen McEachern, is among many describing that as a false choice. “Not only does this decision do irreparable harm to his government’s reputation, it ignores the vital role aid plays in making the UK and our world safer, healthier, and more sustainable for everyone,” she says.
“A true measure of our international standing is how we choose to treat those who are most vulnerable, exposed, and in danger. Make no mistake, this decision will endanger the lives of the world’s most vulnerable. At a time of increasing international instability and attacks on fundamental human rights, the UK should be standing up for compassion and partnerships, not joining a race to the bottom.”
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The environment, Kenya
Grace* is in charge of implementing a US-funded climate resilience programme in Kenya’s most arid areas, where the climate crisis has wreaked havoc over recent years.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “The timing of aid cuts could not have been worse; we were just beginning to see some positive outcomes in the work on resilience building and sustainable agriculture that these communities need so badly.
“The programme was reaching half a million people – helping in animal husbandry and grazing planning – people who really need a sustainable approach to survive, for their livestock to survive.”
Grace added: “We were in the middle of construction work on 30 water use systems and we’ve had to have the sites closed. I’m worrying today if there are safety implications for children and animals at the sites.
“It is just unprecedented to lose all the work of years, to just have to stop work and leave communities stranded. It’s beyond what we thought might be maybe the worst case scenario.
“At the moment we can’t even reach them to explain what’s going on.”
HIV and Aids
Joachim Mumba is president of the International Federation of Social Workers in Zambia
“Two of my own siblings have been left unemployed due to the suspension of USAid-funded projects,” he said. “My sister, the sole breadwinner for her family, had been supporting her daughter’s education at the University of Zambia, where she is pursuing a degree in medicine. With her income now cut off, her daughter’s academic future is uncertain.
“My younger brother has also lost his job. As a family, we had been pooling our resources to support our 78-year-old mother, who has been living with HIV for the past 20 years.
“Her survival has depended on the availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART), a programme largely supported by USAid funding. This disruption has not only ended our monthly contributions to her upkeep but has also raised concerns about the continued accessibility of life-sustaining medication. Thousands of lives here are at risk.”
As of 2022, approximately 1.3 million people in Zambia were receiving ART, covering about 95% of the individuals living with HIV in the country (source: beintheknow.org).
Among the most heartbreaking cases Mumba had heard of was a woman who killed herself after being laid off from a USAid-funded project.
“A close colleague told me of their distressing final interaction. They said, ‘She actually sent me a text message in the morning, expressing how devastated she was … She wished the earth could just open wide and swallow her alive.’ Later that day, news broke that she had taken her own life, unable to cope.
“Social media here has been flooded with similar reports of young people who have taken drastic actions following sudden job losses.
For many, the loss of aid is more than just a policy decision. It is a matter of life and death.”
Women and girls, South Sudan
Atong* is the manager of a safe house sheltering survivors of gender-based violence in Juba, capital of South Sudan.
“I’m very concerned,” she said. “Except for one social worker who is staying as a volunteer, all our five staff members have had to stop working due to funding constraints.
“Since we opened in October 2022 thanks to money from USAid, we have hosted more than a hundred women and girls. A counsellor, trainers in livelihood and literacy, and two matrons have been helping women rebuild themselves and imagine a future – helping them find a job, go back to school or start a little business.
“Additional US funding had been pledged at the end of 2024, but now Mr Trump’s orders jeopardises our future.
“Five women and five children are currently here. One survivor whose five-year-old daughter was raped, and who was threatened by the perpetrators when she tried to seek justice, was on a list of refugees accepted for resettlement to the US. But that is also off now, so she has to start from scratch. She broke down when we told her.
“I have been buying food for the house with my own money. But the pressure keeps mounting, the rent is due. Every time the landlord calls me, I get anxiety. This situation is taking a toll on my mental health. Where are these women going to go if the safe house collapses?”
Hunger, Burundi
Overnight, the rug was yanked out from under us, slashing the services we can provide. The most drastic impact has been on malnourished children, since most supplies were provided by USAid.
We have succeeded in finding enough ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to offer nine children a complete course of treatment, but we are down to our last container of F-75, a therapeutic milk for the sickest among the starving, too weak or little to consume the peanut-based supplements. Further stretching meagre supplies, 50,000 refugees fleeing war in Democratic Republic of the Congo streamed into Burundi last weekend.
We have no idea how to feed the multitudes. We are dismayed that the UK and other governments appear to be following America’s lead, falling dominoes nudging vulnerable families further into peril.
Throughout history, hunger has been weaponised. In this epoch, when wielded by the world’s wealthiest nation, it seems especially cruel. Food grown by American farmers is languishing in ports around the globe.
The hospital I support in rural Burundi sits atop a steep hill. The land – donated to our organisation Village Health Works – is a dignified setting for medical care. Still, I worry about the paths people have to travel to reach it. The road is rocky, full of turns. Since there are limited vehicles in the region, many patients climb, requiring heroic effort from the sick. The bravest trekkers are the mothers, moving their own weight up the dirt road with babies on their backs. Their determination inspires our staff to work night and day, often to the point of exhaustion.
At the end of their slog, the women used to arrive knowing their little ones would receive comprehensive treatment. Now, we face them with emptier hands.
Dr Jennifer Furin
* Names have been changed. Case studies as told to Florence Miettaux, Tracy McVeigh and Kaamil Ahmed
