{"id":444665,"date":"2026-02-25T11:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/444665\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:14:09","slug":"britains-international-aid-cuts-have-failed-its-time-to-change-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/444665\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s international aid cuts have failed. It\u2019s time to change course"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exactly a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devex.com\/news\/uk-will-slash-billions-in-aid-spending-to-fund-larger-military-109494\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">year<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.devex.com\/news\/uk-will-slash-billions-in-aid-spending-to-fund-larger-military-109494\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0ago<\/a>, two days before\u00a0his first White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.one.org\/press\/uk-spending-review-keir-starmer-on-course-to-be-biggest-cutter-of-british-aid-spending-on-record\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">biggest cut to U.K. international assistance in history<\/a>. Twelve months on, the evidence is in: The decision has failed on its own terms. <\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/labour.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">manifesto-breaking reduction<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 around 40% in real terms, worth roughly \u00a36 billion ($8.1 billion) a year \u2014 was devised by a small inner circle in Downing Street and rushed out ahead of the White House trip, justified\u00a0as the price of higher defense spending.<\/p>\n<p>Despite\u00a0hardworking officials at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devex.com\/organizations\/foreign-commonwealth-development-office-fcdo-158082\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Foreign, Commonwealth &amp; Development Office<\/a>\u00a0trying to enact the decision in full without even more devastating consequences for human lives, the reductions now underway should be halted and subjected to a serious review before further damage is done.<\/p>\n<p>This article is free to read &#8211; just register or sign in<\/p>\n<p>Access news, newsletters, events and more.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-lg btn-dark me-3 d-none-print pe-4 ps-4 plausible-event-name=click plausible-event-intention=paywall-join\" href=\"http:\/\/www.devex.com\/register\/CM?return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.devex.com%2Fnews%2Fbritain-s-international-aid-cuts-have-failed-it-s-time-to-change-course-111935%3Fskip_optional_steps%3Dtrue\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Join us<\/a><a class=\"btn btn-lg btn-outline-secondary d-none-print plausible-event-name=click plausible-event-intention=paywall-login\" href=\"http:\/\/www.devex.com\/login?return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.devex.com%2Fnews%2Fbritain-s-international-aid-cuts-have-failed-it-s-time-to-change-course-111935\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool (  ). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exactly a year\u00a0ago, two days before\u00a0his first White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, United Kingdom Prime&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-444665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}