DORSET, United Kingdom — In February 2025, Starmer’s government announced a significant reduction in the United Kingdom (U.K.) foreign aid spending, decreasing from 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.3%, a cut of almost 40%. The government said this would fund an increase in defense spending to 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027. Its own figures already show the impact: U.K. Official Development Assistance (ODA) fell by £1 billion (7.4%) between 2024 and 2025 alone, down to 0.43% of GNI, the lowest share in 18 years, before the deepest U.K. foreign aid cuts have even landed. However, the government’s stated rationale—that it is cutting aid to fund defense—sits uneasily with the evidence on what aid delivers.
Cuts to Official Development Assistance
Cuts to ODA substantially reduce the U.K.’s influence and ability abroad, thus increasing the risk of overseas instability. While increasing global security threats justify increased defense commitments, it does not follow that this should lead to diminishing the ODA budget. On top of the diplomatic leverage that ODA provides the U.K., it also serves to stabilize global health, limit the effects of climate change and afford an agenda-setting power to strengthen alliances and the UK’s overall global standing. These benefits positively impact U.K. citizens as well as pushing to eradicate global poverty overseas. U.K.-funded programs like the Hunger Safety Net in Kenya make the poverty stakes clear, supporting 133,000 of the country’s most marginalized households and up to 4.5 million people during drought emergencies.
Securing Global Health
Reducing U.K. foreign aid compromises its position as a leading global health donor. This position is not only of diplomatic weight but also essential in keeping the world’s population safer from pandemics and other health threats. Pandemic prevention protects the U.K. directly, and with the recent history of COVID-19, it is clear that a health threat anywhere can reach the U.K. quickly. The U.K. government’s Global Health Framework from 2023 outlined commitments on vaccine rollout, treatment access and pandemic prevention as global priorities. However, with U.K. foreign aid facing cuts, there is insufficient funding to fulfill this aim. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) found in its own assessment that two areas U.K. foreign aid cuts will disproportionately affect are health systems strengthening and emergency response.
How the Cuts Affects Developing Countries
The scale of what is at risk is best illustrated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which the U.K. co-founded in 2000 and has since been its largest single sovereign donor. Gavi-supported vaccines are estimated to have prevented 1.7 million future deaths in 2024 alone, and its programs have helped halve child mortality across 78 lower-income countries since inception. The Global Fund to Fight acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), Tuberculosis and Malaria tells a similar story: since 2002, it has helped cut the combined death rate from the three diseases by more than half, saving more than 50 million lives. Both organizations were mid-replenishment cycle in 2025, meaning U.K. funding decisions landed at a particularly sensitive moment for their future budgets.
Decreasing health security significantly impacts developing countries, with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global organizations reporting increasing rates of measles, meningitis and yellow fever. These health threats spread across borders at a faster rate with less funding for immunization, care and effective surveillance. Therefore, the compounding effect of U.K. foreign aid cuts on global health security increases risk for global populations, both beyond and within the U.K.
Agenda-Setting Power
In a world of military spending, with the global total hitting a record high in 2025 of $2.89 trillion, the U.K. has an opportunity to take a leading role within foreign aid, affording greater diplomatic power while global attention is elsewhere. As an influential country on the world stage, U.K. foreign aid can assert national influence and secure stronger allies who can form greater collective power. In a global climate of conflict and war, a collective response could benefit the U.K., allowing the country to have more say in foreign relations in response to America’s withdrawal from aid endeavors. By working on stronger alliances and greater diplomacy between countries, the militaristic threat to the U.K. directly will decrease, showing how foreign aid protects UK citizens too.
While the closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) creates space for the U.K. to gain agenda-setting power, it also significantly deepens the global poverty crisis. By mid-2025, an estimated 83% of USAID programs had been terminated, cutting off support for food aid, emergency relief, vaccination and HIV/AIDS treatment. Oxfam America estimates that the cuts could cause millions to lose access to education and basic health care, leading to up to 3 million preventable deaths each year. Greater UK foreign aid would benefit the U.K. by affording it greater leverage globally, but it also comes at a time of heightened need regarding global poverty.
Addressing Climate Change and National Security Effects
A Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) report has classified ‘global biodiversity loss’ and ‘ecosystem collapse’ as real threats to U.K. national security. Climate change results in essential resources like water and food becoming increasingly scarce in some areas of the world, which, without increasing U.K. foreign aid to combat, threatens the long-term resilience of food supply chains. The climate crisis is already pushing billions into hunger, affecting 82 developing countries, as global food prices have more than doubled in three years.
This will not remain an offshore crisis for the UK. The JIC report warns that resource scarcity already allows non-state actors, such as ISIS in Iraq, to weaponize food and water as a means of gaining power. This destabilization of governments directly affects U.K. foreign policy, as non-state actors threaten allies and draw the British Army into conflicts rooted in resource need rather than ideology, described by former British Army officer Lt. Gen. Richard Nugee from his own experience in Iraq.
The JIC report also warns of real competition for food by the 2030s, a risk that rising conflict is likely to intensify. Diminishing U.K. foreign aid at a time of escalating climate-linked security threats leaves the government less able to respond effectively, undercutting the very rationale used to justify the cuts in the first place.
Conclusion
Overall, U.K. foreign aid is not only essential to fighting global poverty, but it is also central to protecting the U.K. itself through securing global health, affording diplomatic power and protecting against climate change threats.
The deepest reductions are still to come. The sharpest cuts are scheduled to take effect at the next spending review, meaning the full impact on programs like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund has yet to be felt.
– Amy Carpenter
Amy is based in Poole, Dorset, UK and focuses on Good News and Politics for The Borgen Project.
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