When I first read openDemocracy’s report highlighting the extent of the government’s cuts to UK aid spending around the world, I was shocked by their scale, but not surprised.
The cuts are symptomatic of a government that fails to grasp the transformative impact that aid can have on the poorest and most vulnerable communities around the world, and the benefits that it can deliver for taxpayers in the UK. Just a quick skim of the Integrated Review, which sets out the national security and international policy objectives to 2025, tells you all you need to know about how much importance this government attaches to development. The approach to aid spending is covered in just a handful of paragraphs. It almost feels as though the government forgot that the word ‘development’ is in the full title of the review: ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy’.
When I asked the prime minister, Boris Johnson, about the sheer size of the cuts, he told me they were necessary because of the cost of dealing with the pandemic in the UK. But let’s put this into context. The government has said that the UK will spend £10bn on official development assistance in 2021, equivalent to 0.5% of gross national income. Increasing this to 0.7% – the amount that the UK should legally be spending on aid each year – would provide an additional £4bn. In contrast, the government plans to exceed our 2% contribution to NATO.
