Britain steps back from Africa with new aid cuts

LONDON — Britain will reduce its aid sent to Africa by more than half, as the government unveils the impact of steep cuts to development assistance for countries across the world.

On Thursday the Foreign Office revealed the next three years of its overseas development spending, giving MPs and the public the first look at the impact of Labour’s decision to gut Britain’s aid budget in order to fund an increase in defense spending.

Government figures show that the value of Britain’s programs in Africa will fall by 56 percent from the £1.5 billion in 2024/25 when Labour took office to £677 million in 2028/9. It follows the move to reduce aid spending from 0.5 to 0.3 percent of gross national income.

However, the government did not release the details of the funding for specific countries, giving Britain’s ambassadors and diplomats time to deliver the news personally to their counterparts across the world ahead of any potential backlash from allies.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs that affected countries want Britain “to be an investor, not just a donor” and “want to attract finance, not be dependent on aid,” as she pointed to money her department had committed to development banks and funds which will help Africa raise money.

The decision shows a substantial shift in the government’s focus, moving away from direct assistance for countries, and funneling much of the remaining money into international organizations and private finance initiatives.

Chi Onwurah, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa, told POLITICO that she was “dismayed at the level and extent of the cuts to investment in Africa and the impact it will have particularly on health and economic development.”

She added: “I hope the government recognizes that security of the British people is not increased by insecurity in Africa and increased migration from Africa, quite the opposite.”

Ian Mitchell from the Center for Global Development think tank noted the move was “a remarkable step back from Africa by the U.K.”

New priorities

Announcing the cuts in the House of Commons, Cooper stressed that the decision to reduce the aid budget had been “hugely difficult,” pointing to similar moves by allies such as France and Germany following the U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to dramatically shrink America’s aid programs after taking office in January 2025.

She insisted that it was still “part of our moral purpose” to tackle global disease and hunger, reiterating Labour’s ambition to work towards “a world free from extreme poverty on a livable planet.”

Cooper set out three new priorities for Britain’s remaining budget: funding for unstable countries with conflict and humanitarian disasters, funneling money into “proven” global partnerships such as vaccine organizations, and a focus on women and girls, pledging that these will be at the core of 90 percent of Britain’s bilateral aid programs by 2030.

A box with the Ukrainian flag on it awaits collection in Peterborough, U.K. on March 10, 2022. | Martin Pope/Getty Images

Only three recipients will see their aid spending fully protected: Ukraine, the Palestinian territories and Sudan. Lebanon will also see its funding protected for another year. All bilateral funding for G20 countries will end.

Despite the government’s stated priorities, the scale of the cuts mean that even the areas it is seeking to protect will not be protected fully.

An impact assessment — which was so stark that ministers claimed they had to rethink some of the cuts in order to better protect focus areas such as contraception — published alongside the announcement found that there will likely be an end to programs in Malawi where 250,000 young people will lose access to family planning, and 20,000 children risk dropping out of school.

“These steep cuts will impact the most marginalized and left behind communities,” said Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the U.K. network for NGOs, adding: “The U.K. is turning its back on the communities that need support the most.”

Last-minute negotiations did see some areas protected from more severe cuts, with the BBC World Service seeing a funding boost, the British Council set to receive an uplift amid its financial struggles, and the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) — the aid spending watchdog that had been at risk of being axed — continuing to operate with a 40 percent budget cut.

Green threat

Though the move will not require legislation to be confirmed — after Prime Minister Keir Starmer successfully got the move past his MPs last year — MPs inside his party and out have lamented the impact of the cuts, amid the ongoing threat to Labour’s left from a resurgent Green Party under new leader Zack Polanski.

Labour MP Becky Cooper, chair of the APPG on global health and security said that her party “is, and always has been, a party of internationalism” but today’s plans would “put Britain and the world at risk.”

Sarah Champion, another Labour MP who chairs the House of Commons international development committee said that the announcement confirmed that there “will be no winners from unrelenting U.K. aid cuts, just different degrees of losers,” creating a “desperately bleak” picture for the world’s most vulnerable. “These cuts do not aid our defense, they make the whole world more vulnerable,” she added.

Her Labour colleague Gareth Thomas, a former development minister, added: “In an already unsafe world, cutting aid risks alienating key allies and will make improving children’s health and education in Commonwealth countries more difficult.”

The announcement may give fresh ammunition to the Greens ahead of May’s local elections, where the party is eyeing up one of its best nights in local government amid a collapse in support for Labour among Britain’s young, progressive, and Muslim voters.

Reacting to the news that Britain will cut its aid to developing countries aimed at combatting climate change, Polanski said: “Appalling and just unbelievably short-sighted. Our security here in the U.K. relies on action around the world to tackle the climate crisis.”