This month, our grassroots campaign action is to hold the UK Government accountable for its deprioritisation of poverty reduction – including reducing its spending on Official Development Assistance (ODA), with risks of even further cuts in actual poverty reduction programmes. Our expert guest speaker, Richard Watts, Senior Advisor on Development Finance at Save the Children UK, explained how programmes such as the costs of housing refugees in the UK, and processing asylum claims, are being counted towards ODA spending, and therefore reducing the amount of resources available for the long-term development programmes that have historically been supported by the UK. For example, we’re still waiting to see the Government’s response to financial requests from the Global Find to Fight HIV, TB and Malaria and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Whilst the funding and support for people seeking sanctuary in the UK is needed, other countries are fulfilling this commitment as well as keeping commitments to supporting people living in poverty elsewhere in the world.
You can catch up on the recording here:
Links shared on the call:
New Grassroots Trustee Kush Naker’s contact details: [email protected]
August Anti-Oppression learning action
Feedback form for our Autumn training programme
Resources and blogs from the Autumn training programme
Website where you can see the Government’s published data on its international development programmes: DevTracker