, Labours Shadow Secretary of State for
International Development, responding to the planned ODA
spending cuts to countries and programmes revealed in the FCDO
Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021, said:
“After months of avoidance FCDO accounts have finally revealed
the true damage of the callous and counter-productive aid cuts
which are already cost lives. These damning figures explain why
the government have been determined to avoid scrutiny .
“Following the embarrassing failure to rally countries as host of
the G7, the cuts weaken the UK’s reputation around the world and
show our allies and detractors that Britain under is retreating from the world stage
“These revelations comes with barely a month until the UN climate
conference in Glasgow and in a week when the Prime Minister has
criticised other governments for failing to support low-income
countries to tackle the climate crisis. They show how this
Conservative government have removed any credibility they still
had and left us all less safe by cutting programmes focused on
climate and bilateral aid to countries already bearing the brunt
of the climate crisis.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
This year, the Government cut overseas aid from 0.7% of GNI to
0.5% of GNI
FCDO Annual Report and Accounts
2020-2021:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019574/FCDO_annual_report_and_accounts_2020_to_2021.pdf
Key findings from the report:
Planned programme aid cuts between 2020-21 and 2021-22
Climate and Environment programming from £331 million to £214
million
Education, Gender & Equality programming has been cut from
£308 million to £124 million
Health programming from £1.16 billion to £915 million
Humanitarian programmes from £546.6 million to £277.8 million
Planned regional/country aid cuts between 2020-21 and 2021-22
Yemen: £220.9m to £82.4m
Bangladesh: £189.8m to £72.6m
Africa (East & Central): £1.2bn to £546m
