David Green of Christian Aid spells out what the cut to the UK’s overseas aid budget will mean for some of the world’s poorest people and calls for the cancellation of Third World debt
The UK aid budget has once again suffered further salami slicing. Not by a Conservative Prime Minister this time, but a Labour one. Given the party’s manifesto promise to return to aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP “as soon as the fiscal situation allows”, Keir Starmer’s decision to cut the budget to a low last seen under Margaret Thatcher will erode trust and embarrass and appal many in his own party.
But the reverberations of this politically driven decision don’t just stop in the corridors of Westminster. Across some of the most marginalised communities around the world, the tragic human cost will echo down generations.
These cuts mean people in refugee camps will witness food parcels shrink. It will mean children awaiting life-saving vaccines are pushed to the back of a lengthening queue. It will mean smallholder farmers losing support in their efforts to adapt to the worst effects of the climate crisis.
Read More
Why women and children will die because of 'hard man' Keir Starmer's aid budget cut
How UK’s cut to international aid has handed a victory to Russia and China
Anneliese Dodds quits as international development minister over aid budget cut
Where experts and MPs think Sir Keir Starmer's defence spending boost should be spent in Scotland
People in South Sudan are today facing flooding, hunger, intercommunal violence and political unrest (Picture: Luis Tato)People in South Sudan are today facing flooding, hunger, intercommunal violence and political unrest (Picture: Luis Tato)
People in South Sudan are today facing flooding, hunger, intercommunal violence and political unrest (Picture: Luis Tato) | AFP via Getty Images
Lethal effects of cutting aid
This isn’t just rhetoric. Just look at the evidence of the last round of aid cuts in 2021, under a Conservative government and opposed by the then Labour opposition. Christian Aid had to cut crucial church-led peacebuilding work with our local partners in South Sudan.
That is funding which once helped South Sudanese political leaders implement the recent peace agreement, carried out anti-hate speech campaigning, and countered fake news and misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines.
We warned then that the cuts risked having a lethal effect on the chances of a lasting peace. All too sadly, those warnings now ring true. People in South Sudan are today battling flooding, hunger, intercommunal violence and political unrest as the promises of the peace agreement have failed to materialise. More than 9.3 million people, three quarters of the country, will need humanitarian assistance this year.
But don’t just take our word for it.
Deaths in pregnancy
It was a little over a year ago that an internal Foreign Office assessment warned hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth because of UK aid cuts in 2023-24. If that was the warning then, just imagine the severity of the scale after Starmer’s axe has fallen.
With the termination of 90 per cent of USAid contracts in recent weeks pulling the rug out from under many a humanitarian programme, we don’t have to work too hard to imagine the chaos. Indeed, humanitarian workers have already reported that formerly US-funded anti-Aids programmes are in disarray with drugs going undelivered.
It is no surprise then that the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, warned the Trump administration of a “big strategic mistake” in scrapping USAid. Pointing to the immense damage done by the Conservative’s decision to merge the Foreign Office with the Department for International Development, he said development “remains a very important, soft-power tool”.
He was right just a couple weeks ago, why not now? Anneliese Dodds MP, who to her credit resigned as development minister in response to Starmer’s aid cuts, likely found herself asking that question. In her resignation letter, she rightly warned these cuts will deeply harm the UK's global influence. It is now imperative that Starmer and Reeves listen and reconsider.
Defence vs aid is a false choice
Of course, there will be those who will spin this as a decision between defence spending and fulfilling our responsibilities to people in crisis. Don't be fooled. That is nothing more than a false choice.
When aid cuts threaten the UK’s partnership with countries across the globe and roll back on our ability to protect human rights and tackle the climate crisis, how will the world we live in be safer?
The UK Government could still step up to meet the UK’s once proud reputation as a global humanitarian leader and raise the funds needed. Christian Aid is advocating for taxes, not on working people, but on extreme wealth and the biggest polluters. A growing movement of allies have advocated similar approaches.
There is, however, a deeper underlying problem that has been thrown up. For years, opportunistic politicians have sought to discredit aid. In the US, Trump claimed USAid was “run by a bunch of radical lunatics”, while his right-hand man Elon Musk called it “a criminal organisation”. Both comments made without evidence.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with those in need
These are not policy arguments, they are political. Just like those that portray aid as the enemy of prosperity “at home”. The same kind of politicians on this side of the Atlantic cherry-pick polls to suggest public scepticism of aid while ignoring the generosity of the public in times of crisis. But we cannot ignore that populist anti-aid messages have left too many with misconceptions of the scale and impact of spending.
There is, therefore, a responsibility on those of us who believe in the power of effective aid and development to tell that story. To be open, transparent and challenge misinformation. To lead public opinion and make the moral case for standing shoulder to shoulder with communities in need.
But the answer to global inequality is more than aid. That is in part why Christian Aid is calling on the UK Government to introduce legislation that forces corporate lenders to cancel the debt carried by low-income countries.
With most debts owed by low-income countries to private companies governed by English law, the UK is uniquely placed to act. It is a change, at no expense to taxpayers, that would empower crisis-hit countries to free up spending for health and education.
How we treat the most vulnerable is the measure of our humanity. After all we have seen in recent weeks, it has never been so important to get our pen out and write to our leaders to remind them of just that.
David Green, based in the Highlands, is Christian Aid’s public engagement lead