As Britain cuts aid to war-torn country on brink of famine Muslim charities are directing donations towards feeding population
The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which started this week, is the biggest period of giving for UK Muslims.
According to research by the Muslim Charities Forum, in 2018 the UK’s estimated 3.5 million Muslims donated more than £120m to global charitable causes during Ramadan, at a rate of £46 every second.
Continue reading...Two centres in Lebanon are among the casualties of cuts to British aid, with devastating consequences for thousands of patients and families
In January, the British government told its diplomats to start finding 50–70% cuts in aid funding. In March, it was revealed it was slashing aid funding to Syrian refugee projects by a third. Among the many casualties of those cuts is a project in Lebanon.
Two centres – in Zahlé and in Beirut – offer specialised services, such as speech and physiotherapy, for disabled Syrian refugees who can’t afford to pay for them.
Continue reading...Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends
The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.
The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
Continue reading...Former prime minister says group should commit to global vaccine drive and slams UK’s foreign aid cut
Preventing poor countries suffering from vaccine “apartheid” will require the G7 group of rich nations to commit $30bn (£22bn) a year to a global immunisation drive, Gordon Brown has said.
The former Labour prime minister said the UK should use June’s G7 summit in Cornwall to rekindle the moral purpose of the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005, paying for its share of the new fund by reversing the government’s “misguided” cut to the foreign aid budget.
Continue reading...Ismail Ahmed, a refugee turned multimillionaire, says his country has had to battle ‘negative PR’
Aid agencies are hindering development and undermining efforts to attract investment in Somaliland, according to a former World Bank and UN official turned entrepreneur.
Ismail Ahmed, founder of the money-transfer company WorldRemit, claims Somaliland, his birthplace, has had to battle “negative PR” from aid agencies exaggerating their role to protect their interests. Somaliland declared itself a sovereign state independent of Somalia in 1991, but it is not recognised internationally.
Continue reading...Ex-ministers and serving Tory MPs among those criticising decision to cut UK foreign aid by a third
Boris Johnson has been told by a number of Tory former ministers and serving MPs that he risks jeopardising Britain’s leadership at the G7 and the Cop26 climate summit this year if he goes ahead with plans to cut UK aid by a third over two years.
Sir David Lidington, who was Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister, will tell an Institute for Government conference on the G7 on Tuesday: “Sadly, the proposal to drop the UK’s commitment to 0.7% [of gross national income] will make it harder to achieve the prime minister’s ambitious objectives for both the G7 and the climate summit.”
Continue reading...Reduced £205m offer at UN pledging conference comes with 90% of Syrians living in poverty
Syrians and aid organisations have warned that “lives will be lost” as a result of the UK’s decision to cut aid funding to the conflict-stricken country.
The UN hoped to raise $10bn (£7.3bn) from governments and donors at a virtual two-day pledging conference for Syria – the biggest appeal yet to help both people inside and those displaced outside the country.
Continue reading...Norwegian Refugee Council says move to pull funding for its legal support programme will leave many in ‘destitution’
Tens of thousands of Syrians will no longer receive legal support, leaving many “in utter destitution” without documents they need to work, travel or return home, after the British government pulled £4m in funding from a charity programme, according to its director.
News of the cut to a Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) project supporting refugees and internally displaced Syrians, comes amid reports of a planned 67% aid reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) budget for Syria, which would place hundreds of thousands of lives at risk.
Continue reading...Government could face judicial review if it does not reinstate its spending commitment, advice adds
The government will be in clear breach of the law and exposed to a judicial review if it presses ahead with a multibillion-pound cut in the UK’s foreign aid programme, according to legal advice given to Tory backbenchers.
Advice issued by the QC and peer Ken Macdonald said No 10 had acted outside the law when it abandoned its commitment to spend 0.7% of national income on aid.
Continue reading...President Paul Kagame – long feted by leaders in the west – is accused of serial human rights abuses in expansive new book
A devastating new book will accuse Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame – long feted by his prominent international supporters as the model of visionary new African leadership – of being a serial human rights abuser, including for his role in a sustained campaign of assassinating his rivals in exile.
Written by Michela Wrong, the author who covered the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 people – largely ethnic Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus – were killed by Hutu militias over 100 days, Do Not Disturb represents one of the most far-reaching historical revisions of Kagame and his regime.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM says UK’s greatest ally will be US as he makes statement to MPs on defence review
In his Sky News interview Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, said the security and defence review said that the UK could use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with chemical or biological weapons. That was a “big change” in policy, he said.
He was referring to this passage on page 77 of the document (pdf).
The UK will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 (NPT). This assurance does not apply to any state in material breach of those non-proliferation obligations. However, we reserve the right to review this assurance if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary.
Here is the Scottish government’s summary of the latest plans for easing lockdown restrictions in Scotland. And here is a graphic summarising what it says.
Scotland’s indicative route out of lockdown. If we all stick with it and get the virus more under control as the vaccines do their work, there is hope for a much better summer on the horizon ☀️ pic.twitter.com/gTKHtJTNn5
Continue reading...PM confirms cut temporary amid opposition from his own party including former ministers
MPs will not get a vote on the government’s plans to slash aid spending, Boris Johnson has said in the of Commons, confirming that the cut is intended to be temporary.
The former shadow international development secretary Andrew Mitchell said Johnson was at risk of setting an illegal budget if it did not meet the legal obligation to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid.
Continue reading...Denying MPs their say could head off Tory rebellion but potentially open government to legal action
A planned reduction in aid spending may not go to a vote in the Commons, Downing Street has indicated, which would head off a likely rebellion by Conservative MPs but could expose the government to legal action.
Pressed repeatedly on whether the cut in the aid budget from 0.7% of national income – which is set out in law under the 2015 International Development Act – would be subject to a Commons vote or a new act, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson declined to confirm this.
Continue reading...Exclusive: former DfID secretary Mark Lowcock shocked by decision of Johnson’s government to cut aid
Ministers have decided to “balance the books on the backs of the starving people of Yemen” in an act that will see tens of thousands die and damage the UK’s global influence, the head of the UN’s Office for Humanitarian Affairs has said.
Speaking with rare bluntness after the UK more than halved its funds to help Yemen, the former permanent secretary at the Department for International Development Mark Lowcock said he was shocked by the decision. It is understood he was given no chance to appeal to the UK to rethink.
Continue reading...Internal reports show projected cuts including 59% in South Sudan, 60% in Somalia and 67% in Syria
Some of the poorest and most conflict-ridden countries in the world will have their UK aid programmes cut by more than half, according to a leaked report of discussions held in the last three weeks among Foreign Office officials.
The cuts include slashing the aid programme to Somalia by 60% and to South Sudan by 59%. The planned cut for Syria is reported at 67% and for Libya it is 63%. Nigeria’s aid programme would be cut by 58%.
Continue reading...Monday’s announcement confirmed my worst fears – not even those in the most desperate crises are safe from aid cuts
Three weeks ago, foreign office minister James Cleverly told me that in the face of drastic cuts to the UK’s aid budget, Yemen would remain a UK priority country and the government would use the full force of its diplomatic efforts to bring about peace.
On Monday, those words rang hollow when he announced the UK was slashing humanitarian aid to Yemen by more than 50% compared with last year. As a consequence, an already devastated country now faces the worst famine in decades and the prospect of lasting peace seems further away than ever.
Continue reading...The mostly white development sector only funds efforts led by more ‘legitimate’ people. We need support from the diaspora
Being poor, black and from sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest thing you can ever be. But that is what I am.
Before Covid-19 came, extreme poverty had largely become a problem of only one part of the world – sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank in 2018, the region was projected to host more than 90% of the world’s extreme poor by 2030.
Continue reading...Analysis: as need outstrips funding, experts are making the case for overhauling ‘old-fashioned’ donor-recipient narratives
This year one in every 33 people across the world will need humanitarian assistance. That is a rise of 40% from last year, according to the UN. More than half of the countries requiring aid to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic are already in protracted crises, coping with conflict or natural disasters.
Even before Covid-19 threw decades of progress on extreme poverty, healthcare and education into reverse, aid budgets were heading in the wrong direction. In 2020, the UN had just 48% of its $38.5bn (£28bn) in funding appeals met, compared with 63% of $29bn sought in 2019.
Continue reading...Former prime minister says chancellor is paying bills for Covid ‘off the backs of the poor’
The former prime minister Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on the unprecedented cuts to UK aid, saying they put at risk tens of thousands of children’s lives while millions more face losing an education.
Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the planned cuts of 30% – £5bn – which come into force at the end of next month meant that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was “paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad”.
Continue reading...A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it
Nothing shames our country more than Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad.
He has recently been pushed off his plan to cut £20 a week from the already low universal credit paid to 6 million of Britain’s poorest families.
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