LONDON, UK – 9 April 2026 – New figures published today confirm the UK is moving in the wrong direction on international development, with more than £1 billion cut from the aid budget in 2025 alone, accelerating the steady erosion of the UK’s global development leadership.

At the same time, nearly a fifth of the UK’s shrinking aid budget is still being spent at home rather than overseas. In 2025, the Government spent £2.4 billion of the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget on accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

While in-donor refugee costs (IRDCs) fell by 15% compared to 2024, they still accounted for nearly a fifth of total aid spending, as overall ODA declined by over £1 billion year-on-year. While the reduction in IDRCs is welcome, the UK Government must ensure this direction of travel continues, and the maximum amount of funding is redirected towards development priorities overseas.

The overall outlook is set to worsen. With plans to cut ODA to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28, equivalent to around £6 billion annually, the deepest reductions are still to come, with the full impact unlikely to be felt until late 2026 and beyond.

Today’s figures show:

1) UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) fell by £1 billion in 2025 with cuts set to accelerate through to 2027/28

In 2025, the UK Government spent £1.046 billion less on Official Development Assistance (ODA) than in 2024, reducing spend to 0.43% of GNI, before subtracting in-donor refugee costs (IDRCs).

This represented the first round of cuts after the Prime Minister’s decision, announced in February 2025, to cut ODA from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28 to fund increased defence spending. This cut, when fully enacted, will amount to roughly £6 billion per year.

With only £1 billion in cuts already delivered and the ODA budget set to fall to 0.3% by 2027/28, more significant reductions are still to come.

2) The government spent £2.4 billion on accommodation for refugees in the UK – nearly a fifth of the total aid budget

Currently, the cost of housing refugees and asylum seekers in the UK is taken from the budget for international development.

In 2025, £2.4 billion was spent on housing refugees and asylum seekers in the UK – equating to 18.3% of all aid spent in 2025.

This was a 15% decrease on 2024, when £2.8 billion of ODA was spent on in-donor refugee costs (IDRCs), equating to a £400 million saving.

The government has previously pledged to “to end the use of expensive accommodation” to support refugees in the UK, saying it will “deliver a more affordable and sustainable asylum system,” which will deliver “at least £1 billion per year” in savings by 2028‑29.

In March this year, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) warned that the UK Government has used an “expansive” interpretation of OECD guidance to pay for asylum seeker accommodation with money earmarked for international development. ICAI added that this “has made UK aid less transparent and distorted policy choices.”

3) Partial protection for Africa but overall funding unknown

In 2025, Africa remained the largest recipient of bilateral aid from the FCDO, receiving £1.69 billion, a 5.2% increase on 2024. The share of bilateral FCDO aid spent in Africa increased from 50.6% to 53.3%.

Figures on bilateral aid spent by departments other than the FCDO were not made available in today’s provisional figures. While today’s figures suggest a temporary protection of bilateral funding for the region, it is not possible to assess the UK’s total support to Africa – and how it is changing overall – without a regional breakdown of multilateral allocations.

FCDO bilateral aid to Africa was nevertheless £700 million less than the amount spent on domestic refugee accommodation in 2025. The UK also spent only £1.3 billion of bilateral aid on humanitarian assistance in 2025 – just over half (54%) of the amount spent on in-donor refugee costs.

Adrian Lovett, UK Executive Director of the ONE Campaign, said:

“2025 saw the first hard evidence of the Prime Minister’s damaging aid cuts – with more than £1 billion stripped from international development and much worse to come. The UK Government is moving in exactly the wrong direction, just as the world plunges deeper into crisis, and international cooperation is needed more than ever.

“This is compounded by the fact that a fifth of the UK’s aid budget is still being spent on accommodation for asylum seekers at home — even if that share has fallen since 2024. Supporting refugees is vital, but this was never the purpose of Official Development Assistance. Spending more than £2 billion of the development budget within the UK shortchanges our international partners and misleads taxpayers about how their money is being used.

“Within this bleak context, it is welcome to see progress being made to reduce the share of aid spent domestically, alongsidesome temporary protection for spending in Africa. But much deeper cuts are coming soon, with disastrous consequences for some of the world’s poorest communities.”

###

About The ONE Campaign:

ONE is a global, nonpartisan organisation advocating for the investments needed to create economic opportunities and healthier lives in Africa. Our trusted advocacy uses hard-hitting data, grassroots activism, political engagement, and strategic partnerships to influence decision-makers.

Learn more at ONE.org