Category Archives: Aid

Leak reveals UK Foreign Office discussing aid cuts of more than 50%

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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%.

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We’ve cut aid to Yemen and children will starve – is this what global Britain means?

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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.

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As a poor Ugandan farmer, white and black people ignore my advice on poverty

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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.

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How Covid could be the ‘long overdue’ shake-up needed by the aid sector

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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.

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‘Savage’ cuts to UK aid put children’s lives at risk, says Gordon Brown

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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”.

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Rishi Sunak is paying Covid bills off the backs of the poor. It shames our country | Gordon Brown

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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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We are seeing a global vaccine apartheid. People’s lives must come before profit | Winnie Byanyima

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The poorest countries are missing out on adequate doses of vaccines – and the health implications should concern us all

Nine months ago world leaders were queueing up to declare any Covid-19 vaccine a global public good. Today we are witness to a vaccine apartheid that is only serving the interests of powerful and profitable pharmaceutical corporations while costing us the quickest and least harmful route out of this crisis.

I am sickened by news that South Africa, a country whose HIV history should have taught us all the most appalling life-costing consequences of allowing pharmaceutical corporations to protect their medicine monopolies, has had to pay more than double the price paid by the European Union for the AstraZeneca vaccine for far fewer doses than it actually needs. Like so many other low- and middle-income countries, South Africa is today facing a vaccine landscape of depleted supply where it is purchasing power, not suffering, that will secure the few remaining doses.

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UK aid cuts of up to 70% a ‘gut punch’ to world’s poorest, experts say

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Decision to reduce overseas aid represents a ‘major challenge’ to partner countries’ Covid responses, FCDO warned

The British government’s decision to slash at least 50% in overseas aid within the next few weeks has been called a “gut punch” to the world’s poorest.

Reacting to the news that diplomats had been ordered to cut billions in aid over the next six weeks, experts warned that many lives would be lost and the UK stood to lose its reputation as a global “force for good”.

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UK diplomats told to cut up to 70% from overseas aid budget

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Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives

British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”

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UK must cancel poor countries’ debt or face Covid-19 ‘financial tsunami’

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International development committee tells government that pandemic and foreign aid cuts fuelling poverty and food insecurity

Billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries must be permanently cancelled in order to stave off a “looming financial tsunami” caused by Covid-19 and the ensuing global recession, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.

Debt relief will not be enough to help the world’s most vulnerable economies as they face skyrocketing levels of hunger and unemployment, according to an inquiry into Covid-19’s secondary impacts in developing countries, published on Tuesday by the House of Commons international development committee (IDC).

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Landlocked Lesotho faces food crisis amid Covid border closures

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Food price increases and economic impact of lockdowns have left a quarter of the kingdom’s population reliant on food aid, UN warns

Almost a quarter of Lesotho’s population will require food aid between January and March as a result of Covid-19 restrictions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.

More than 580,000 people out of a population of 2.2 million are estimated to be food insecure, despite predictions of normal to above average rains this year and the potential for above average cereal production.

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Give families cash to feed their children, there’s overwhelming evidence it works | Arthur Potts Dawson

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Vouchers and money to buy food bring families the dignity everyone deserves, as the World Food Programme has shown

Dignity is not a word that you would normally associate with your weekly supermarket shop, or with planning how you might be going to feed your children each night.

But right now, when families are under intense pressure to find enough money to keep food on the table and ensure their children have access to a healthy and nutritious diet, dignity is something we should all be demanding for those who depend on others for the means to feed their loved ones.

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Aid sector is ‘last safe haven’ for abusers, UK investigation warns

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MPs say sexual exploitation still rife despite series of scandals and call for more effective measures

The sexual abuse and exploitation of local women by international aid workers remains “rife”, say MPs, describing the sector as the “last safe haven” for perpetrators.

A parliamentary inquiry found evidence of widespread abuse of beneficiaries, ineffective investigations and whistleblowers forced out of jobs, despite a series of recent scandals that had prompted some reforms.

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Bob Grose obituary

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For some people, the work they do and the life they lead are in perfect alignment. My friend and colleague Bob Grose, who has died aged 71, was one of those people.

He did historically important work on HIV/Aids for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa, and for polio, HIV and leprosy for the Overseas Development Administration (ODA, later DfID) in India. Writing for War on Want in the mid-1980s, Bob was one of the first to predict that truckers would be high-risk vectors for the HIV epidemic in Africa. He was quickly snapped up by the WHO’s Global Programme on Aids (later UNAids) in Geneva, where he worked from 1987 to 1992 as a technical adviser. He was ahead of his time, mobilising community groups in Africa to raise awareness of the epidemic: a focus of UNAids to this day.

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UK pledges an extra £47m in aid as agencies warn of ‘catastrophic hunger’

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Coronavirus, conflict and cuts to UN funding are increasing the risks of food insecurity and acute malnutrition in 2021

The government has promised £47m in extra emergency aid for 2021 as it becomes clear that the coming year will see a dramatic rise in people struggling for food.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Wednesday it will provide more aid for food, water, hygiene and shelter in 11 countries, including £8m to Africa’s Sahel region, where the UN has warned of catastrophic hunger.

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Poor data protection could put lives at risk, say Somalia aid workers

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‘Extremely dangerous’ if personal information needed to process mobile payments is lost or falls into wrong hands, say staff

The rapid upscaling of digital technology use by international groups in Somalia is causing concern about the risk to the people whose data is being collected.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of programming by humanitarian organisations to deliver aid, but local staff working with several different NGOs say the organisations are not thinking enough about data protection or obtaining informed consent.

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Cutting foreign aid will put girls at risk

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Now, mid-pandemic, would be the worst time to abandon our commitment to the world’s poorest countries

“The great strategic prize of the 21st century is the full economic, political and social empowerment of women,” said William Hague, when he was foreign secretary. “There are still large parts of the world who are undervaluing, under-utilising, under-developing half their population.” That was five years ago, and there is still a long way to go. I am speaking out now, because we are about to go into reverse.

Parliament’s women and equalities committee, which I chair, isn’t afraid to take the prime minister to task when his policies fall short in providing for the marginalised and under-represented. We’ve held the government’s feet to the fire on the domestic abuse bill, the role of women in the response to Covid-19 and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on BAME communities. But the need to level up society doesn’t stop at our borders, and many of the world’s poorest countries are also the most unequal.

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Fears UK aid cuts could undermine research on deadliest diseases

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Exclusive: experts sign letter warning against slashing spending on public-private programmes

Experts fear a push to cut the UK’s aid budget will slash spending on global health research, handicapping international public-private programmes that have helped combat the world’s deadliest diseases over the last decade.

In a letter addressed to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, last week, prominent parliamentarians sought reassurance that the planned cuts would not lead to “dramatic reductions” in investment for devastating diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, Aids and a clutch of neglected tropical diseases.

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World Bank ‘missed vital opportunities’ to support Covid response, says Oxfam

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Millions forced to do without or pay for services as funding fails to adequately shore up healthcare systems, report finds

Millions of people in low-income countries have been forced to go without healthcare or have had to pay for it during the coronavirus pandemic, despite billions of pounds in emergency World Bank funding, research has found.

The World Bank’s $6bn (£4.45bn) emergency health fund to 71 countries in response to Covid-19 failed to strengthen health systems or remove financial barriers to using them, according to an Oxfam report published on Friday.

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Senior Tories fear £4bn cut to overseas aid will be made permanent

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MPs campaigning against chancellor’s plans believe they can ‘humiliate’ the government into U-turn

Senior Tories fear that the cut to Britain’s aid budget will become permanent, amid a growing campaign inside and outside parliament to reverse the decision.

Conservatives opposed to the move are already vowing to “humiliate” the government by forcing it to stand by its manifesto commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid – a vow chancellor Rishi Sunak said he would breach in his review of public spending last week. He announced that £4bn would effectively be cut from the aid budget by reducing it to 0.5%, despite pleas from Tories and the archbishop of Canterbury.

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