The UK Parliament’s International Development Committee has published the FCDO’s own Equality Impact Assessment, compiled earlier this year to assess the impact of the significant cuts to the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget for 2023-24.
Widely reported in the media, the assessment includes that 500,000 women and children in Yemen will not receive healthcare, and that across Africa thousands of women will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of cuts to the UK’s ODA budget.
In response, Prof Melissa Leach, Director of the Institute of Development Studies, said:
“The FCDO’s own impact assessment lays bare the devastating toll the cuts to UK ODA is taking on the lives of the poorest people around the world.
“Counter to the Government’s published priority to support the health and rights of women and girls, we know that the shocking cuts over the past year left the most vulnerable women and girls in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia without critical services.
“Our research shows the importance of long term, sustained support to build effective health systems, which then has a knock-on impact on nutrition, education and poverty to name just a few.
“To play our role in supporting the poorest people, in the poorest countries, and restoring the UK’s reputation as a trusted development partner, the Government urgently needs to commit to spending the ODA budget on the poorest people overseas, as it is primarily intended to do.”
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