Bond statement in response to the aid budget being cut to 0.5%

The government one-year Spending Review has today announced that the Chancellor intends to reduce the proportion the UK spends on aid from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5%.

Stephanie Draper, CEO of Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development said:

“This is a tragic blow for the world’s most marginalised people and many questions remain as to when and how the decision will be made when we will return to 0.7%. The amount we spend on aid has already declined this year and this significant additional cut will cost lives. Millions are being pushed into poverty due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We should be stepping up our support, not reducing it. We hope MPs from all parties will stop this from happening on our watch.

Our UK aid budget has been one of the few things that has united parliament because MPs have understood that helping others, as well as our own, is morally, economically and politically the right thing to do if we are to tackle climate change, global pandemics or humanitarian crisis.

2021 should have been the year that re-established the UK as a global player, committed to climate change, poverty eradication, tackling disease and conflict as we host COP26 and the G7. Instead, today’s announced u-turn on a manifesto commitment sees the UK turning its back on the world’s poorest despite knowing that no one is safe from this or future pandemics unless we are all safe.”

ENDS 

Notes to editor 

Boris John considers temporary cut to Britain’s aid spending to pay for Covid crisis – The Times
On the 20th November 2020, 187 UK humanitarian, development and domestic charity leaders and organisations wrote a letter to the Prime Minister calling for him to uphold the UK’s commitment to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on aid and development. Climate change organisations, Ex-PMs, opposition parties, senior Tories, church leaders, nobel prize winners and global philanthropists have also come out against the proposal.
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