As funding is shifted to defence, people suffer and so does Britain’s reputation
Before his trip to the White House last week, Keir Starmer said he was cutting the UK aid budget from 0.5 per cent of GDP to 0.3 and using the savings to boost defence spending and please Donald Trump.
So what? Not long ago, the UK was considered an aid superpower. Between 2013 and 2020, it spent 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid — one of only a handful of countries to meet a target set by the UN. In 2015, this goal was enshrined in law.
- Much of this money was spent as bilateral aid, going directly to places like Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen to combat poverty and help women and girls.
- It also funded international bodies that buy vaccines, help poor countries adapt to climate change and build infrastructure.
- For many, this financial heft in the aid sphere helped amplify the UK’s diplomatic voice even as its economic clout diminished.
What happened? Aid commitments have been waning for a while. Boris Johnson folded the Department for International Development into the Foreign Office in 2020, arguing this would ensure aid efforts were aligned with diplomatic goals. That year, spending dropped to its current level of 0.5 per cent — a “temporary measure” to ease the financial impact of the pandemic.
Crafty accounting. Recent Conservative governments also devised new ways of counting overseas aid. As a result, much doesn’t go overseas at all. Instead, a significant chunk (£4.3 billion or 28 per cent of the total in 2023) covers the cost of housing refugees in the UK.
That dwarfs the £1.2 billion the UK spent in 2023 across the whole of Africa. The UK’s biggest “bilateral” aid partner that year wasn’t Gaza or Ukraine. It was itself.
Actual spend. Discounting domestic support to refugees, the UK actually spends about 0.2 per cent of GDP on aid, according to Ian Mitchell and Sam Hughes at the Center for Global Development. As things stand, Starmer’s cuts will reduce that to 0.1 per cent, making the UK the second-least generous country in the Development Assistance Committee, a club of the 32 biggest aid givers – just ahead of Hungary. It used to be near the top.
What’s ripe for the chop? Not much, considering how lean the budget already is. The foreign secretary, David Lammy, wants to protect funds for vaccines and major crises like Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. That might not be realistic. Most low-hanging fruits have already been picked.
Previous rounds of cuts from 2019 to 2023 give an idea of what might be coming. They slashed funding for Pakistan from £305 million to £69 million; Ethiopia from £299 million to £164 million; Syria from £223 million to £109 million; and Yemen from £260 million to £101 million. Money for health, food and civil society tumbled too.
Ouch. According to a Foreign Office assessment, these cuts meant:
- 500,000 women and children in Yemen did not receive healthcare.
- 27,000 malnourished children in South Sudan went untreated, putting at least 3,000 at risk of death.
- 567,000 children in South Sudan missed out on vaccines.
- Two million women across Africa did not receive sexual health services.
- 333,000 children in Ethiopia did not get help to attend school.
Globally the US is by far the biggest aid spender, providing 40 per cent of all assistance last year. Donald Trump has pulled the plug on this, suspending aid for 90 days and inducing meltdown in the global humanitarian system – subject only to a Supreme Court order yesterday to unfreeze aid worth nearly $2 billion.
The UK might have once led efforts to plug the gap. No more.
What’s more… China has already stepped in to fill that gap. The $8.5 billion Beijing has invested in Ethiopia over the last few years, for example, dwarfs the £164 million the UK spent there in 2023.
