The future of UK aid

“While the focus towards the Indo-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East as well as taking an integrated approach across security, diplomacy and development, conflict resolution and poverty reduction may enable the leveraging of benefits for some of the world's most vulnerable, it will not reach most… It is unclear therefore if the Government’s priority is to focus aid on countries where the highest proportion of the most vulnerable in the world live, or to focus aid on countries where the UK can gain the most trade and diplomatic benefits.”

“[A]id spending will operate as an extension of foreign and security policy, and targeted accordingly to respond to the FCDO’s seven global challenges (which, notably, does not include tackling global poverty)”

“Poverty is a major driving factor behind all of the global challenges identified and its absence undermines the UK’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.”

“The commitment to focus spending on countries where the UK’s economic, security and development interests are aligned will lead to relative increases in amounts of aid spent in Asia-Pacific and East Africa, two areas where there is seen to be potential to grow trade and investment partnerships. There is also an apparent shift away from supporting countries or regions in protracted conflict illustrated by expected cuts in spending in the Sahel region and the Middle East.”

“The specific focus on girls’ education rather than gender equality more widely does amount to a missed opportunity and it seems counterintuitive to limit UK Aid efforts to focus exclusively on educational issues.”

“…this is a very narrow gender focus, dismissing not least those intersecting inequalities exacerbated by Covid-19, such as domestic violence, unpaid care, sexual and reproductive health, political participation and addressing backlash against progress made for women’s rights in many countries around the world. These are all areas that have direct impacts on the ability for girls to successfully complete their education.”

“Gender equality cannot be narrowed to just girls' education. It is important to tackle barriers that stop girls getting into education such as child marriage, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation/cutting etc.”

“…the UK Government has squarely focused on girls’ education as a proxy for all its gender equality work thereby failing to recognise that tackling gender inequality requires a holistic, multi-sectoral approach covering all different areas of gender discrimination”

“It was extremely challenging to be given so little notice about the extraordinary budget cut. Communicating these cuts with long-standing international partners at such short notice was a challenging task, made more challenging by not being able to give an indication of what would happen beyond 2021-22.”

“The cuts will not only deny many millions of people from the chance to access safe water, sanitation and hygiene, but they send the political message that basic services for the poor are no longer a priority.”

“The abruptness of the Government’s decision, the failure to consult with or even pre-warn other donors as well as the lack of consultation with civil society groups in the UK lay the Government open to accusations of incompetence.”

“Having a very short timescale in which to develop the closure budget meant that it was extremely difficult to plan for a responsible exit within the 90 days limit imposed by FCDO. This was also compounded by the fact the news was delivered just before a bank holiday weekend, giving us a day less to prepare the budget. Queries around the budget that needed further clarification from FCDO meant the 2-week time limit for budget submission was in reality reduced to a few days, once answers were received.”

“For most contracts due to be cut, there is still no clarity, even at the time of writing this evidence i.e. two months into the financial year, about key information relating to the cuts themselves.”

“A multi-year programme was given only two days for planning what an exit would look like, and submitting those plans to FCDO, an astonishingly short time for such a substantial task with large potential impacts for programme participants. In another case, a programme was told that they had 24 hours to model what a budget cut of 25% would look like, heard nothing for weeks, and then were informed that in fact the programme would be cut by 70%.”

“...we are preparing to have to rapidly redirect resources away from other priority areas to underwrite all costs the FCDO will not cover during the close-out period. We are also having to emergency fundraise to keep our Bauchi office open and staff retained to continue the work we are committed to. This would be extremely difficult in any climate but is a mountain to climb in the post-COVID fundraising climate.”

“The knock-on effect is that girls and women living in acute poverty are now losing their access to the vital health services and family planning that allowed them to stay in education; as the rug of support is pulled away, so are crucial community relationships and local trust, meaning that a temporary cut to UK aid, even for just a year, has long-lasting consequences.”

“Stopping mass drug administration (MDA) could result in prolonging the process by many years, especially given that we do not know when funding will be reinstated. The impact on countries that are nearing onchocerciasis elimination, for example Ghana, cannot be underestimated. Countries who are at the last mile of elimination, with ASCEND funding in 2021 were set to conduct a survey to determine if they can stop MDA. Without this survey, the twice-yearly MDAs in high-risk regions will need to continue, at a higher cost to the state.”