Just over a year on from the 2025 cuts to the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget, the FCDO has today released its programme allocations from 2026/27 to 2028/29. These new figures clearly show how the cuts will become a reality for families and communities around the world, and how many more lives will be lost owing solely to reduced ambition and abandoned priorities. While we welcome the focus on conflict and gender, and maintaining existing commitments to global health and education in emergencies, given the scale of the overall budget reductions, it’s hard to take seriously the Government’s claim to be a trusted development partner.

On 25 February 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his decision to break Labour’s manifesto pledge and cut the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget from 0.5% to 0.3% by 2027.

On the anniversary of that announcement last month, Results UK joined almost 100 NGOs in an urgent joint call to the UK Government to reverse the cuts, predicted to be the biggest reduction of any G7 country, and to restore its commitment to vital international development support.

Today’s new FCDO budget figures show us exactly how the 2025 cuts will fall, and which programmes will be reduced or axed altogether.

While the UK’s maintenance of its existing support to education in emergencies and continuation of the multilateral health pledges it has already made is of course welcome, there is no getting away from the fact that the impact of these cuts will be devastating. For example the UK has gone from being a leading donor to polio eradication to walking away from direct funding entirely, putting children at risk of paralysis and death. Also what will happen to children seeking an education outside of a conflict or crisis situation? Education is apparently no longer a priority area for UK investment, despite the desperate need and benefits it brings. The Government is seeking new sources of funding to replace ODA. This is of course welcome but is far from a solution. ODA is a catalytic investment and has strong accountability mechanisms built in. The same is not true of private or philanthropic funding.

Results UK CEO Kitty Arie said:

“We all know that governments have to make hard choices, and that today global insecurity is a driver of increased defence spending. But it is neither morally defensible nor practically credible to deplete vital development programmes that had already been cut to dangerous levels, freeing up barely enough money to make a dent in military spending. Not only that, but the loss of credibility the UK will face among development partners, and the reduction in the UK’s soft power, will hinder rather than help us deliver our global security goals.”

Results UK not only urges the Government to abandon these cuts before any more damaging and irreversible programme closures happen, but also to shelve any thoughts of further cuts, which would leave the UK’s development assistance programme devoid of real meaning. With the Prime Minister calling at the Munich Security Conference last month for faster increases in military spending, and with extremist voices calling for even deeper cuts to UK aid, Keir Starmer must firmly rule out such ideas.

On 13 July 2021, when the Boris Johnson Government cut the UK’s ODA budget from the legally mandated 0.7% of Gross National Income to 0.5%, then Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer said in Parliament: “Every Member here … was elected on a manifesto to retain the 0.7% target, and it matters that we keep our promises to the world’s poorest, particularly at such a time of global uncertainty.” Those words were true then, and they remain true today.

ENDS

Notes to Editors 

The Government’s written statement in the House of Commons confirming the 2026-27 to 2028/29 ODA allocations can be read here.

The 25 February 2026 joint statement, signed by 98 NGO leaders, can be read here. These cuts have been predicted to be the biggest reduction of any G7 country, and to restore its commitment to vital international development support. 

The UK Government’s equality impact assessment of ODA programme allocations for 2026/7 to 2028/9 is here.

For further information or interviews, please contact Will Sewell at [email protected] or 07496259908.