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The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The spirit of the G8 ‘make poverty history' summit of 2005 seems long gone
Twenty years ago this weekend, the leaders of the world's most powerful countries, chaired by Tony Blair, gathered at the Scottish golf resort of Gleneagles and made a series of historic promises on debt relief and overseas aid. It was the culmination of a long-running campaign involving charities, churches and celebrities and benefited from the passionate commitment of Gordon Brown, for whom international development is a lifelong cause. A few days before, more than 200,000 campaigners had gathered in Edinburgh and formed a noisy, joyful human chain, demanding that the world's leaders 'make poverty history'. As a result of the momentum created and the promises made, international aid increasedand 36 countries eventually had their crippling overseas debts drastically reduced. There are many reasons it would be hard to envisage a Gleneagles summit today. The certainties of the early noughties, when globalisation felt like an unstoppable force underpinning economic growth and restraining inflation, are long gone. Just three and a half years after Gleneagles, Brown, by then prime minister, was hosting a meeting of the G20 in London's Docklands, at which global leaders scrambled to respond to the havoc wreaked by the global financial crash. Old certainties were cast aside, relationships strained and the claim to leadership of the G8 industrialised countries was hopelessly undermined by the fact that the crisis originated on their doorstep. The resulting deep recessions in many wealthy countries raised questions about voters' commitment to global causes. In the UK, public support for development, once solid enough to encourage David Cameron to embrace the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid, started to fall away from about 2012-13. More recently, the world has become a much more fragmented, multipolar place. Middle-income countries such as China and India have demanded more prominence on the global stage. Russia's territorial aggression in Ukraine prompted its expulsion from the G8 – now the G7 – and killed off any lingering hopes that free trade and capitalism would ultimately usher in liberal democracy. Global solidarity was hard to summon, then, even before Donald Trump's second term unleashed chaos in the global trading system. The budgets of many rich-country governments have taken a battering from repeated economic shocks, at the same time as pressure mounts for more defence spending to confront potential threats. Labour ministers are quite right when they say 'the world has changed'. Yet despite the more fraught global backdrop, the campaigners who worked alongside Blair and Brown at Gleneagles and beyond have been profoundly shocked by the British government's casual disregard of development. Three years ago, Keir Starmer was promising to undo Boris Johnson's 'misguided' decision to absorb the Department for International Development back into the Foreign Office. Labour's manifesto dropped this idea. It suggested the UK had 'lost influence' as a result of the Tories' neglect of international development and promised to 'turn the page to rebuild Britain's reputation', restoring aid to 0.7% 'as soon as fiscal circumstances allow'. Instead, Labour slashed the aid budget, with little discussion, when Starmer wanted to promise Trump he would raise defence spending on his White House trip in February. Jenny Chapman, the development minister who replaced Anneliese Dodds when she resigned in protest at this deep budget cut, has insisted the UK still wants to lead on development. Yet it is hard to take the moral high ground while admitting that no area of policy, including projects to support women and girls' health and education, will be safe from the cuts. Labour has said it wants to create respectful partnerships with developing countries; but Save the Children UK's director, Moazzam Malik, told me recently that the cuts would be felt by many countries not as a new-found era of collaboration but as a withdrawal. As the UK steps back at the same time as Trump is dismantling USAID, the challenges in some of the world's poorest countries have only intensified. In particular, a blizzard of recent expert reports has called for action on the unsustainable debts squeezing many governments' budgets. The UN-backed Financing for Development conference in Seville last week ended with promises of reform, including the wider use of 'pause clauses' to halt repayments during natural disasters, for example – something the UK has supported. More radical solutions that might have included debt write-offs did not make it through the negotiations, but South Africa hopes to use its chairmanship of the G20 to press for more progress in the coming months. Michael Jacobs, a former Brown adviser, now a visiting professor at the Overseas Development Institute, insists there was a sense of momentum on debt relief in Seville. 'It was the single most significant topic of debate. There is rising pressure on the creditor countries – including China – to act. So, as in 2005, the moment for a new international debt relief package may be arriving,' he said. Other campaigners returned from Seville notably downbeat, however, pointing to the difficulties of assembling a global coalition of the willing on development in a time of tight budgets and fraying international bonds. Summoning the spirit of Gleneagles may be too much to hope for, two decades on. But after a string of economic shocks and as the climate emergency accelerates, the moral imperative to act remains – even if this Labour government can't find it in a focus group or on a spreadsheet.
The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The spirit of the G8 ‘make poverty history' summit of 2005 seems long gone
Twenty years ago this weekend, the leaders of the world's most powerful countries, chaired by Tony Blair, gathered at the Scottish golf resort of Gleneagles and made a series of historic promises on debt relief and overseas aid. It was the culmination of a long-running public campaign involving charities, churches and celebrities, and benefited from the passionate commitment of Gordon Brown, for whom international development is a lifelong cause. A few days before, more than 200,000 campaigners had gathered in Edinburgh and formed a noisy, joyful human chain, demanding that the world's leaders 'make poverty history'. As a result of the momentum created and the promises made, international aid increased – and 36 countries eventually had their crippling overseas debts drastically reduced. There are many reasons it would be hard to envisage a Gleneagles summit today. The certainties of the early noughties, when globalisation felt like an unstoppable force underpinning economic growth and restraining inflation, are long gone. Just three and a half years after Gleneagles, Brown, by then prime minister, was hosting a meeting of the G20 in London's Docklands, at which global leaders scrambled to respond to the havoc wreaked by the global financial crash. Old certainties were cast aside, relationships strained – and the claim to leadership of the old guard of the G8 industrialised countries was hopelessly undermined by the fact that the crisis originated on their doorstep. The resulting deep recessions in many wealthy countries raised questions about voters' commitment to global causes. In the UK, public support for development, once solid enough to encourage David Cameron to embrace the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid, started to fall away from around 2012-13. More recently, the world has become a much more fragmented, multipolar place. Middle-income countries such as China and India have demanded more prominence on the global stage. Russia's territorial aggression in Ukraine prompted its expulsion from the G8 – now the G7 – and killed off any lingering hopes that free trade and capitalism would ultimately usher in liberal democracy. Global solidarity was hard to summon, then, even before Donald Trump's second term unleashed chaos in the global trading system. The budgets of many rich-country governments have taken a battering from repeated economic shocks, at the same time as pressure is mounting for more defence spending to confront potential threats. Labour ministers are quite right when they say, 'the world has changed'. Yet despite the more fraught global backdrop, the campaigners who worked alongside Blair and Brown at Gleneagles and beyond have been profoundly shocked by this government's casual disregard of development. Three years ago, Keir Starmer was promising to undo Boris Johnson's 'misguided' decision to absorb the Department for International Development (DfID) back into the Foreign Office, 'for so many reasons'. Labour's manifesto dropped this idea, but did suggest the UK had 'lost influence' as a result of the Tories' neglect of international development, and promise to 'turn the page to rebuild Britain's reputation', restoring aid to 0.7%, 'as soon as fiscal circumstances allow'. Instead, Labour slashed the aid budget, with little discussion, when Starmer wanted to promise Donald Trump he would raise defence spending, on his White House trip in February. Baroness Jenny Chapman, who replaced Anneliese Dodds when she resigned in protest at this deep budget cut, has insisted the UK still wants to lead on development. Yet it is hard to take the moral high ground while admitting that no area of policy, including projects to support women and girls' health and education, will be safe from the cuts. Labour has said it wants to create respectful partnerships with developing countries; but Save the Children UK's director Moazzam Malik told me recently that the cuts will be felt by many countries not as a new-found era of collaboration, but as a withdrawal. As the UK steps back, at the same time as Trump is dismantling USAID, the challenges in some of the world's poorest countries have only intensified. In particular, a blizzard of recent expert reports has called for action on the unsustainable debts squeezing many governments' budgets. The UN-backed Financing for Development conference in Seville last week ended with promises of reform, including the wider use of 'pause clauses', to halt repayments during natural disasters, for example – something the UK has supported. More radical solutions, that might have included debt write-offs, did not make it through the negotiations; but South Africa hopes to use its chairmanship of the G20 to press for more progress in the coming months. Michael Jacobs, a former Brown adviser, now visiting professor at the Overseas Development Institute, insists there was a sense of momentum on debt relief in Seville. 'It was the single most significant topic of debate. There is rising pressure on the creditor countries – including China – to act. So, as in 2005, the moment for a new international debt relief package may be arriving,' he argued. Other campaigners returned from Seville notably downbeat, however, pointing to the difficulties of assembling a global coalition of the willing on development, in a time of tight budgets and fraying international bonds. Summoning the spirit of Gleneagles may be too much to hope for, two decades on; but after a string of economic shocks, and as the climate emergency accelerates, the moral imperative to act remains – even if this Labour government can't find it in a focus group or on a spreadsheet.
Sky News
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
PM warned that attempts to prevent conflict will be harmed by cuts to overseas aid budget
Former spymasters, military chiefs and leading politicians are among a group of more than 60 public figures to sign a letter urging the prime minister to allocate more of the UK's reduced overseas aid budget to preventing wars. A failure to act risks leaving the government facing what they described as a "global conflict crisis" with "one hand tied behind its back". The letter to Sir Keir Starmer, shared with Sky News, said violent conflict is impacting more countries across the globe than at any time since the Second World War. "They are disrupting economies and diverting the world's attention away from human rights, climate change and gender equality," according to the letter, signed by, among others, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller and Lord Jonathan Evans, former director generals of MI5, and Lord Mark Sedwill, a former national security adviser. 1:55 "To durably strengthen national security, therefore, the government must invest not just in defence, but also in development and diplomacy." The group is not calling on the prime minister to reverse a decision to shrink the overseas aid budget to 0.3% of GDP from 0.5% by 2027 to fund an increase in defence spending. Instead, they are focused on the proportion of the diminished international development budget that is spent on conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The ratio had been 4% of total overseas aid spending in 2018. But the level has shrunk to between 1 and 1.5% today, according to Lord Jack McConnell, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, which organised the letter. The group wants the proportion to be returned to the equivalent of 4%. "Without this, the UK might risk facing the global conflict crisis with one hand tied behind its back," the letter warned. The signatories said they would like to see an all-of-government approach to tackling violent conflict to be included in an upcoming national security strategy, which is due to be published before a NATO summit next week. Among the other people to sign the letter are General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former head of the army, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Wigston KCB, a former head of the Royal Air Force, Tan Dhesi MP, chair of the defence select committee, and Sarah Champion MP, chair of the international development committee. Conflict prevention and resolution efforts that the UK has in the past championed include helping to secure peace agreements in the Philippines, Colombia and Ethiopia. Another initiative is the "Women, Peace and Security" agenda. "We are gravely concerned that these initiatives may disappear amidst cuts to the aid budget," the letter said. "This would be a false economy, as conflicts left to escalate and spread will lead to further insecurity, forced displacement and humanitarian crises to which the armed forces and aid agencies must respond."
The Independent
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
This short-sighted cut to foreign aid will come back to haunt the UK
There was no comfort in today's spending review for those across all parties who care about international development. The reduction of Britain's overseas aid budget to meagre 0.3 per cent will come back to haunt us. There are plenty of people who argue that cutting overseas aid should not overly concern us. Why should foreign people in distant countries profit from the UK taxpayers' hard-earned money? If any aspect of our budget is expendable, surely it is this. But much is missing from this simplistic analysis. Aid is not about giving handouts. It is about connecting the dots between conditions abroad and the UK's serious challenges on health, security and migration. Indeed the whole point of international development is to improve social conditions in vulnerable countries to contain the scourge of disease, conflict and extremism – all of which in turn step up the pressure on our borders. Morality aside, aid is a strategic investment of the highest, if not the most glamorous, order. We hear a great deal about the need to 'stop the boats.' And rightly so — irregular migration through small boat crossings is dangerous and deeply unsettling for the British public. But while deterrents and enforcement may grab headlines, they will never solve the problem alone. If we are serious about reducing irregular migration, we must first tackle the reasons that people feel they have no choice but to leave their homes. And that's exactly where well-targeted aid can play a decisive role. New research from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy provides compelling evidence. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a marked improvement in public services like healthcare and education was linked to a 27 per cent drop in migration intentions. In countries affected by conflict or climate stress — such as Sudan, Afghanistan or Syria — aid that stabilises fragile regions, supports livelihoods, or helps farmers adapt to a changing climate can reduce future displacement. Most of the people arriving in small boats today come from countries facing humanitarian crises. They're not mainly economic opportunists — they're often fleeing instability, poverty, or violence. When we invest in making those regions safer and more secure, we reduce the push factors that fuel irregular migration. Investing in development abroad also means protecting ourselves from future threats. There is growing evidence to support the link between development spending and our own security. Again, research from the Kiel Institute found that improving basic services, for example, reduces the aspiration to migrate: In Sub-Saharan Africa, a marked improvement in public services (such as health and education) was linked to the 27 per cent lower intentions to migrate. Similarly, aid that's used to stabilise fragile regions can prevent renewed conflict with mass movement and with far-reaching security repercussions. I still find it difficult to believe that a Labour government has raided the aid budget to plug short-term spending gaps. While I did not expect a return to 0.7 per cent of development spending any time soon, I genuinely believed that Sir Keir Starmer would stand by his manifesto commitment and had the strategic nous to protect the remnants of a budget that has been persistently plucked and picked at. Robbing Peter to pay Paul might play well populistically, not least in an age where the pulse-racing demands of social media are at odds with the slow-burn tempo of international development transformations – but make no mistake, it is a proverbial shot in the foot. Finally, we can't escape the human tragedy that the aid cuts will unleash. An old African proverb says "the axe forgets, but the tree remembers". International development has been denigrated and delegitimised over the years in a burgeoning climate of narrow nationalism flourishing from a broken international system. Those responsible for riding that populist wave will soon move on. But the people left behind will carry this for years to come. We too will suffer.
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Diminished UK aid budget is ‘new normal', says development minister
The UK's drastically diminished aid budget is the 'new normal,' the development minister, Jenny Chapman, has said, as she claimed Labour's approach would help repair voters' faith in overseas aid. Lady Chapman took up her post in February, after Anneliese Dodds resigned in protest at Keir Starmer's decision to slash overseas aid spending to 0.3% of gross national income from 0.5%, to pay for increased defence spending. Chapman said as she and her team go through the aid budget line by line, seeking deep cuts, they were not treating the belt-tightening as temporary. 'I'm not making my choices, thinking, 'Oh, we've got to get through the next 18 months, two years and then we'll be back to where we were'. I'm making decisions thinking that this is the new normal and we have to make this work,' she said, repeatedly referring to what she called a '0.3 world'. Chapman was the MP for Darlington from 2010 until 2019, when she lost her seat in Boris Johnson's landslide general election victory. She was ennobled by Starmer in 2021. Speaking in her spacious room in the Foreign Office, she acknowledged the dismay among many longtime supporters of development over the scale of Labour's cuts, but claimed the sector needed to work differently to win back wavering public support. 'I think the aid sector does amazing work and there are incredible people who've spent their lives working to make the world a better place,' she said. 'At the same time, the truth is that the confidence that the public once had in this agenda has faded, and we need to be honest with ourselves about that. And I will work with them to improve that situation.' 'I'm not going to shy away from tough messages when I think they need to be made.' Before the 20-year anniversary of the Gleneagles G8 summit, at which the UK secured significant progress on aid and debt relief, Chapman claimed Labour can still lead on these issues. 'I'm very proud that the last Labour government led thinking around development. We have to do the same now and we have to shape what development looks like for the next 20 years. That is the job.' Chapman attracted criticism earlier in the week for suggesting in an appearance at the cross-party international development committee that the UK had for too long been viewed as a 'global charity'. But speaking after her grilling by the committee, she insisted that even without the necessity of making cuts, the way the government works with developing countries needed significant reform. 'African governments are saying they want partnership, not paternalism. So they want more control over what happens in their country,' she said. Chapman suggested the UK's new approach, within straitened resources, would involve sharing UK expertise and encouraging private sector investment. 'This morning I was in the City with our new investment taskforce,' she said, citing 'lots of enthusiasm, lots of possibilities.' Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion She also underlined the urgency of cutting the cost of supporting asylum seekers in the UK, which accounted for 20% of the overseas aid budget in 2024. Chapman is part of a joint working group with the Home Office aiming to reduce the budget in this area. 'They need to move further and faster because that's not good use of that money. They would agree with that,' she said. Asked where the cuts will fall, Chapman refused to make any specific budget commitments, but said the UK would prioritise humanitarian aid. She also hinted at other areas the government might focus on, including the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) arm, which gives grants and loans to low-income countries, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi). 'Money that's spent by the World Bank, you get £10 invested for every £1 that we put in. That's a good use of money. The IDA fund performs very well, it's got proven evidence based of having an impact,' she said. 'We are one of the biggest, if not the biggest donors to Gavi; it works, it's saved hundreds of thousands, millions of lives.' The UK committed £1.98bn over three years to IDA at the end of 2024, before the budget cuts were announced, but it has since been suggested that promise is 'under review'. Gavi has a pledging conference at which the UK will be expected to set out its contribution. Chapman also praised the BBC World Service, amid reports that the government is demanding budget cuts. 'We don't know what the exact allocations are going to be yet. We're working through those numbers, but what I would say is that the World Service do tremendous work that nobody else can do,' she said, calling it 'an absolute gold standard resource'.
