A day of statistics painting a bleak picture for the world’s poorest

Last week, the provisional Statistics for International Development (SIDs) for the UK’s spending of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2025 came out.

As the UK government implements its cuts to ODA, the SIDs offer important spending insights on these reductions. Overall, ODA fell by £1bn (7.4%) from £14.08bn in 2024 to £13.04bn in 2025 to 0.43% of Gross National Income (GNI). This is the first time in 18 years that the share of UK ODA was this low. If we were to exclude in-donor refugee costs (IDRC), UK ODA would be even lower, at 0.35% of GNI. It is important to bear in mind that the deepest cuts are still to come, as set out by the government’s recent publication of the FCDO’s ODA allocations for 2026/27 onwards.

Key figures from 2025

From the recently published ODA allocations, we know that regional bilateral ODA to Africa will fall by 56% between 2024/25 and 2028/29 – a worrying trend given the high levels of poverty and fragility in the region. While the provisional SIDs show a welcome minor uplift in bilateral ODA to Africa by 5% in 2025, this small increase is overshadowed by these upcoming stark cuts and the impact they will have.

Despite the Minister for Development pointing out that from 2026/27 onwards, the government will channel a larger part of its ODA budget through multilaterals, a large proportion of which goes to countries in Africa, we can’t fully determine how much is going to Africa via UK multilateral spending due to limited available data. Analysis by CGD suggests that it will still not offset the fall in bilateral ODA to Africa.

Bilateral ODA matters because it can provide life-saving, direct, and targeted funding for countries and communities with the most acute needs, including humanitarian support, healthcare, and clean water, so any cuts to bilateral programmes (9% in 2025) will still have devastating impacts on the communities they serve. The government’s own Equality Impact Assessment for the cuts in 2025/26 already paints a bleak picture of the impact of the UK aid cuts. Life-saving programmes, including the ‘Ending Preventable Deaths Support Programme’, a key component of UK support to end preventable deaths of women, newborns and children, will see budget reductions. This is also the case for the ‘Hunger Safety Net’ programme in Kenya, supporting 133,000 of the poorest households in Kenya and up to 4.5mn people during drought emergencies to reduce poverty and hunger, as well as the deprioritisation of the education programme ‘Girls and Out of School Children’ in Pakistan.

In-donor refugee costs remain high

Over the last years, in-donor refugee costs – costs associated with supporting refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, which of course are important – have taken up a large proportion of the already heavily cut ODA budget. In its Comprehensive Spending Review, the government “committed to ensuring that asylum costs fall”. While it’s important to note that spending has come down slightly from 20.1% of ODA (£2.8bn) in 2024 to 18.3% (2.4bn) in 2025, this in-country ODA spending still remains far too high given the scale of these devastating cuts. With over 18% of the total UK aid budget spent on these costs in the UK – more than double the amount going to Africa – it’s clear the UK government remains an outlier among donors and must do much more to bring these figures down further and faster.

But even if the costs come down quicker than planned over the next few years, it is unclear what will happen with that money. Last year, it was announced that the FCDO is no longer the ‘spender and saver of last resort’, offering the FCDO greater budget predictability, no longer having to find in-year savings should the Home Office continue to overspend on IDRC. Unfortunately, it has also been repeatedly stressed that the FCDO will no longer automatically receive any potential savings made should IDRC fall.

Ministers and FCDO officials have repeatedly been asked about this during International Development Committee evidence sessions. Most recently, Minister Chapman stated that in the case of any departmental savings, “What happens to ODA gets decided at that [ODA] board.” What Minister Chapman failed to mention was an agreement dating back to July 2025, revealed by ICAI, “that the Home Secretary can keep any ODA asylum underspends and recycle them into the regular Home Office budget” – risking the UK’s ODA budget falling below 0.3% of GNI.

UK’s race to the bottom

On the same day as the publication of provisional SIDs, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) also published its Preliminary 2025 Data, giving a better picture of ODA spending across its members – and it is a bleak one.

ODA by DAC members declined by 23.1% – the largest decline ever – and is projected to fall further by 5.8% next year. Strikingly, the UK, alongside Germany, the US, Japan and France, accounted for 95.7% of the total decline in ODA. Worryingly, humanitarian assistance saw a decline by 35.8%, ODA to least developed countries (LDCs) saw a decline by 25.8%, and ODA to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 26.3% in comparison to 2024. Those most in need are clearly bearing the brunt of political decisions made in the richest countries, including the UK. And while the UK’s ranking amongst DAC members has not changed much in 2025, the larger cuts are yet to come, and it is clearly a key player in this race to the bottom.

UK ODA going forward

At a time of great need, when conflict, crisis and climate change disproportionately harm the most marginalised communities, it has become clear that the richest countries are turning their back on them. While the provisional SIDs for 2025 could have painted a somewhat optimistic picture, the ODA cuts will hit hardest from this year onwards and lay bare the devastating impact of political decisions by the UK and other G7 and DAC member countries – decisions that cost lives.

At a time of severe ODA cuts, it is more important than ever that the UK government ensures that UK aid is focused on tackling global challenges affected the most marginalised communities and goes to countries where it is needed the most. It is crucial that the government stops diverting life-saving aid towards in-donor refugee costs. It must go faster and further in bringing these costs down and ensure that any savings are returned to the FCDO’s ODA budget.

This is not the time to retreat from international commitments. We welcome the fact that the Foreign Secretary and Minister for Development have confirmed the government’s commitment to international development in front of the IDC, by “arguing for reform of multilateral institutions” and “changing how we do development to have maximum possible impact.”

But the UK needs to put these words into action by championing reforms to the global financial system, which has trapped the lowest income countries in unjust cycles of debt and allowed the leakage of critical resources back to rich countries through weak international tax policy and illicit financial flows. The upcoming Global Partnerships Conference and UK G20 presidency in 2027 are important moments for the UK and its partners to take steps in a better direction.