Latest news with #aidcuts
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
£5bn UK overseas aid cuts cannot be challenged in court, say government lawyers
Cuts of £5bn to the UK overseas aid budget cannot be challenged in the courts, government lawyers have said, even though ministers have no plan to return spending to the legal commitment of 0.7 % of UK gross national income (GNI). The assertion by Treasury solicitors that ministers are immune from legal challenge over aid cuts comes in preliminary exchanges with the aid advocacy group One Campaign. It is the first step in what could prove a highly embarrassing judicial review. In the spring statement in March the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said she was slashing aid from 0.5% to 0.3 % of GNI. The international development minister, Jenny Chapman, recently said in a Guardian interview that this level of spending was the new normal. The 40% cut, due to be imposed by April 2027, is being billed as necessary to fund a new permanent increase in defence spending required by long-term changes to the security landscape. The previous aid cut, from 0.7 % to 0.5 %, imposed by Dominic Raab, the then Conservative foreign secretary, was billed as temporary. It was accompanied by aspirational timetables for aid spending to return to 0.7%, the target set out in the 2015 International Development Act entrenching that figure as the government commitment on overseas aid. One Campaign says that for ministers to comply with the law, they face a choice of either repealing the act, a vote that some Labour MPs will be reluctant to justify to their electorates, or to set out a credible pathway to return to the target. The campaign said it is impossible for ministers to keep legislation on the statute book that places duties upon them they intend to defy. In their legal defence – a written exchange on the legal merits between government and One Campaign prior to a potential judicial review – government lawyers claimed a section in the act shields ministers from all legal challenge. They said the act's only mechanism for securing accountability is through a ministerial report to parliament. They pointed to a section of the act on the ministerial duty to report to parliament that states the reporting duty 'does not affect the lawfulness of anything done or omitted to be done by any person'. The lawyers told One Campaign that 'this puts beyond doubt that parliament intended the courts would have no jurisdiction'. This interpretation is being contested by the Liberal Democrat peer Jeremy Purvis, who helped draft the legislation and steered it through parliament. He said ministers cannot hide behind the narrow section of the act on minister's reporting duty to claim it ousts the courts. He added: 'This government has not just missed the target but is changing it, and there is no scope to do this. 'The simple fact is the government is seeking to avoid a vote in parliament, avoid the courts and avoid all accountability for reneging on all requirements under the act.' He added the government had set out no pathway to return to 0.7 %. One Campaign says the cuts are likely to be devastating. Its director, Adrian Lovett, said there was no evidence that ministers had met the requirement to undertake impact assessments of the cuts on poverty reduction and gender equality. Ministers say they only have to make such an assessment when cuts to specific programmes are being made.
Japan Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Japan Times
'No one supports the children': Hunger plagues Mozambique
Sinhara Omar, a widow and mother of three children, relies on wild tubers and fruits to feed her family in the refugee camp where she lives in Mozambique's gas-rich and conflict-torn Cabo Delgado province. No one comes anymore with food, clothing and blankets to the camp in the city of Pemba, where she has lived since she fled a rebel attack on the northern town of Macomia five years ago. "For a long time, they used to support us, but now they've left us. Everyone manages in their own way. We don't get food or clothes, no one even supports the children anymore," she said. Omar and other families in the refugee camp used to receive help from the charity Association for the Protection of Women and Girls (PROMURA). But U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to freeze some $60 billion in aid has tightened the screw in countries around the world as have other aid cuts by international donors. The cuts hit hard in Mozambique, one of the world's most disaster-prone countries where conflict, climate shocks like floods and droughts, political unrest and economic decline have led to a hunger crisis. Volunteers distribute supplies from the World Food Program to residents after Cyclone Chido in Pemba, Mozambique, in December last year. | REUTERS "We had to stop all the activities of the projects that were funded by USAID," said Erasmo Mature, project manager at PROMURA. Not only are Mozambique residents regularly displaced by cyclones but more than 1.3 million people have fled their homes since Islamic State-linked militants launched an insurgency in Cabo Delgado in 2017, according to aid agencies. The World Food Program says about 5 million people are food insecure in Mozambique and need urgent support. "It's dawn, and we have no idea what to give the children to eat," Omar said. During a visit to Mozambique in February, United Nations officials called for urgent action to address the crisis caused by conflict and the effects of two cyclones — Chido and Dikeledi — in December and January. "Global humanitarian funding is under immense strain," said Joyce Msuya, assistant Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs, during the trip. "We cannot abandon Mozambicans at this critical juncture." The U.N. children's agency UNICEF has warned of a "children's emergency" caused by cuts to international aid budgets, with funding for Mozambique forecast to fall 20% by 2026. It says it needs about $43 million this year but so far the budget is only about 35% funded. In last year's devastating drought, fueled by the El Nino climate phenomenon, crops wilted in the fields. Harvests were dismal, and food prices soared. In some districts around the capital Maputo, the effects of the drought are still felt by low-income families who depend largely on subsistence farming. Children pose for a picture in Pemba, Mozambique, in December 2024. | REUTERS In the village of Bobole, Teresa Vilanculos said during the most recent harvest this year, she reaped nothing from her field because the seeds had dried up in the baked soil. She depends upon farming to feed her two grandchildren, and now she has no harvest and no seeds for the next planting season in September. She used to receive seeds through projects funded by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the African Development Bank and food from the Red Cross but this is not available any more, she said. She also sells firewood to make ends meet, but it is not enough to pay for food for her grandchildren. "Here, it's normal for us to go through the day without having something in our mouths," she said. UNICEF says Mozambican children face "unprecedented crises" with 3.4 million of them needing aid now. Only 3% of the $619 million the WFP says it needs for Mozambique has been provided by donors this year, and the agency needs $170 million to provide vital assistance over the next six months to prevent a large-scale hunger crisis. For Vilanculos, support cannot come soon enough. "I just feel so sorry for my grandchildren, because they're not to blame for any of this," she said. "Neither am I, but it's hard to see children depending on the solidarity of others to eat."
Japan Times
04-06-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
From Nigeria to Pakistan, TB testing 'in a coma' after U.S. aid cuts
At a tense meeting in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, health workers pored over drug registers and testing records to gauge whether U.S. aid cuts would unravel years of painstaking work against tuberculosis in one of Africa's hardest hit countries. For several days in May, they brainstormed ways to limit the fallout from a halt to U.S. funding for the TB Local Network (TB LON), which delivers screening, diagnosis and treatment. "To tackle the spread of TB, you must identify cases and that is in a coma because of the aid cuts," said Ibrahim Umoru, coordinator of the African TB Coalition civil society network, who was at the Abuja meeting.
The Independent
19-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Aid cuts forcing people in 70 countries to miss out on much-needed medical care, WHO warns
People in at least 70 countries are missing out on much-needed medical treatment thanks to aid cuts by the US and other nations, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) director has said – in a stark warning about the colossal impact of these moves. The Donald Trump -sanctioned slashing of US-funded programmes under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the most prominent example. But Germany, France and the Netherlands have also taken an axe to aid spending. While the UK is set to cut foreign assistance spending by billions of pounds. "Patients are missing out on treatments, health facilities have closed, health workers have lost their jobs, and people face increased out-of-pocket health spending," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an address to the World Health Assembly. 'Many ministers have told me that sudden and steep cuts to bilateral aid are causing severe disruption in their countries and imperilling the health of millions of people,' Dr Tedros added. The Independent has previously reported how the US and UK cuts are projected to lead to millions more people dying from Aids, an increased risk of famine, and falling access to clean water and education as a result of aid cuts. Meanwhile, the WHO itself is also facing more than a billion US dollar reduction to its budget over the next two years, as its biggest contributor the US is withdrawing funding as part of Trump's plans. As part of the World Health Assembly, the 194 WHO member states will have to deal with an already slimmed-down budget of $4.2 billion (£3.1bn) for 2026 and 2027. That is 20 per cent less than the $5.3bn originally proposed and amounts to $2.1 billion a year. "2.1 billion dollars is the equivalent of global military expenditure every eight hours," Dr Tedros told delegates. But the cuts will mean lsoing staff, the WHO's director general confirmed, with a current plan to cut the agency from 76 departments to 34. 'The organisation simply cannot do everything member states have asked it to do with the resources available today,' he said. As the United States prepares to exit the organisation, China is set to become the biggest provider of state fees - one of the WHO's main streams of funding alongside donations. The WHO conducts a range of activities from developing treatment guidelines and checking the safety of medicines to coordinating countries' emergency responses. It was heavily criticised by the the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response for its response to Covid-19, in particular for not declaring a global emergency sooner. At the same time it has faced criticism - and swirling conspiracy theories - from people who believe global agencies have too much power over national governments. Amid the chaos, there is a glimmer of opportunity, however, as 'many countries also see this as an opportunity to leave behind an era of aid dependency and accelerate the transition to sustainable self-reliance based on domestic resources,' Dr Tedros said. In the UK, as in several other countries, aid cuts are being driven by a decision to spend more on defence. Dr Tedros asked the room to consider that his agency's budget shortfall represented the price of global military spending, 'every eight hours,' and urged countries to also consider preparing for, 'an attack from an invisible enemy'. He pointed out that the Covid pandemic killed an estimated 20 million people and wiped $10 trillion from the global economy. The WHO member states are expected to finalise an agreement on Tuesday which will set out how the world should react to a future pandemic.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Britain's new aid vision: less cash, more spin. The cost will be counted in lives
Last week, the government justified cutting the UK's development budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income – the lowest level in more than 25 years – by claiming Britain's role is now to 'share expertise', not hand out cash. With a straight face, the minister responsible, Jenny Chapman, told MPs on the international development committee that the age of the UK as 'a global charity' was over. But this isn't reinvention – it's abdication, wrapped in spin. No wonder Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who is chair of the committee, called Lady Chapman's remarks 'naive' and 'disrespectful'. Behind the slogans lies a brutal truth: lives will be lost, and Britain no longer cares. Dressing that up as the 'new normal' doesn't make it less callous. Kevin Watkins of the London School of Economics analysed the cuts and found no soft-landing options. He suggests charting a sensible course through this wreckage, noting that harm from the cuts is inevitable but not beyond mitigation. Dr Watkins' proposals – prioritising multilateralism, funding the global vaccine alliance (Gavi) and replenishing international lending facilities – would prevent some needless deaths. Ministers should adopt such an approach. The decision to raid the aid budget to fund increased defence spending was a shameful attempt to cosy up to Washington. The cuts were announced just before Sir Keir Starmer's White House meeting with Donald Trump, with no long-term strategy behind them. It's a deplorable trend: globally, aid levels could fall by $40bn this year. The gutting of USAID, the world's biggest spender on international development, by Elon Musk, was less fiscal policy than culture-war theatre. Foreign beneficiaries don't vote, and liberal-leaning aid contractors lack clout, so dismantling USAID shrinks 'globalism' while 'owning the establishment'. But the real casualties lie elsewhere. Memorably, Bill Gates said the idea of Mr Musk, the world's richest man, 'killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one'. Countries that built health systems around USAID now face a reckoning. It wasn't just cash – it sustained disease surveillance, logistics and delivery. Ironically, much of it never left American hands, absorbed by US private interests. In the UK, University of Portsmouth researchers say aid increasingly serves foreign policy, not development. It's not just ineffective – it's cynical. Aid should change lives, not wave flags. All this as poor nations' debt crisis deepens. Without global reform, the Institute for Economic Justice warns, African nations face a cycle of distress blocking investment in basic needs. The UK recasts withdrawal as progress – holding up Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as model partners. But Georgetown University's Ken Opalo makes a cutting point: in diplomacy, when the music stops, those who outsourced ambition get exposed. Aid dependency, he argues, has hollowed out local ownership. With little planning, many governments now face a choice: take over essential services or cling to a vanishing donor model. Politicians should choose their words carefully. The former Tory development secretary Andrew Mitchell rightly criticised Boris Johnson's 'giant cashpoint in the sky' remark for damaging public support for aid. Labour ministers are guilty, too. Britain has replaced moral leadership with metrics, and compassion with calculation. The policy's defenders call it realism. But without vision, it's just surrender – leaving the world's poor to fend for themselves, forced to try to survive without the means to do so.
