Foreign Aid Cuts Will Lead To More Poor People Dying, Government Admits

Aid spending in Africa is due to fall.Deep cuts to the UK’s foreign aid budget will lead to more poor people dying, the government has admitted.Women, children and people with disabilities are set to suffer most as a result of the controversial policy, according to a Foreign Office assessment.Keir Starmer announced in February that he was slashing the amount the government spends on overseas aid from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) – around £6 billion – in order to boost the defence budget.“That is not an announcement I am happy to make,” the prime minister said. “I am proud of our record on overseas development.“At times like these the defence and security of the British people must always come first – that is the number one priority of this government.”But in its impact assessment of the aid cuts, the government said: “Any reductions to health spending risk an increase in disease burden and ultimately in deaths, impacting in particular those living in poverty, women, children and people with disabilities.”Spending on education, gender and equality projects will fall by £200 million between 2025 and 2026, the government said, with cuts of £186m to girls’ education funding.The government admitted that the closure of a girls’ education programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo would have “negative impacts on 170,000 children”.Overall, spending in Africa will fall from £1.6 billion to £1.4bn, but spending in Europe will rise by 38%.Hannah Bond of ActionAid UK said “deeply alarmed by plans to slash girls’ education funding”.She added: “This will almost inevitably push more girls out of school and into forced child marriages, denying them their rights and choices.”Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development, said the government was “deprioritising” funding “for education, gender and countries experiencing humanitarian crises such as South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, and surprisingly the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Sudan, which the government said would be protected”.Gideon Rabinowitz, its policy director, said: “While we welcome the government’s efforts to maintain consistent levels of funding for humanitarian crises ... it is concerning that bilateral funding for Africa, gender, education and health programmes will drop.“The world’s most marginalised communities, particularly those experiencing conflict and women and girls, will pay the highest price for these political choices.“At a time when the US has gutted all gender programming, the UK should be stepping up, not stepping back.”Related...Keir Starmer Announces Foreign Aid Is Being Slashed To Boost Defence SpendingForeign Aid Cuts Could Trigger Up To '10m More HIV Infections' By 2030

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