• Bilateral aid to Africa, where need is most acute, to be cut by almost £900 million by 2028-29 – a 56% cut
  
• This is the largest regional cut in absolute terms, and the continent faces the sharpest decline in year-on-year funding between 2026-27 and 2028-29
  
• Foreign Secretary also confirms the UK will end funding to the Pandemic Fund and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative
  
• In February 2025, Keir Starmer announced the largest ever cut to Britain’s international aid budget, a 40% reduction, worth approximately £6 billion per year

LONDON, UK – 19 March 2026 – The Foreign Secretary has set out which programmes will be rolled back – or scrapped altogether – under sweeping 40% cuts to the UK’s international aid budget over the next three years.

Bilateral aid to Africa, the world’s least-developed continent, will be slashed by £874 million by 2028-29 – a 56% cut compared to 2024-25, the last year before the aid cuts. This is the largest regional cut in absolute terms, and the continent faces the sharpest decline in year-on-year funding between 2026 and 2029.

The government’s own impact assessments find that shuttering aid programmes in some African countries will harm young people in particular. In Malawi alone, cuts are “expected to result in approximately 250,000 adolescents losing access to modern methods of family planning each year and an expected 20,000 children becoming at risk of dropping out of school because of an end to school feeding.”

It continues: “In Africa, expected reductions in social protection provision through country programmes will affect poor households vulnerable to shocks, children, and people unable to work (for instance, people with disabilities and older people) including in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.”

Support for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which works to end polio in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Pandemic Fund has been withdrawn entirely. This will lead to “heightened risks of disease outbreaks,” according to impact assessments.

Experts have also previously warned that up to 200,000 children could be paralysed by polio every year unless eradication efforts are adequately financed.

The ‘crisis reserve’ has been cut by 12%, from £85 million to £75 million, leaving the Foreign Office with less money for rapid support in humanitarian emergencies.

The cost of housing asylum seekers in UK hotels – running at roughly £2 billion a year – is taken from the budget for international aid. It means that by 2027-28, aid spending on overseas programmes is set to reach its lowest-ever point since records began in 1970, at just 0.24% of GNI. 

The ONE Campaign estimates that cuts to key global health programmes alone could contribute to more than 600,000 avoidable deaths worldwide in the coming years.*

Analysis shows UK aid cuts are set to be steeper than any other G7 country, going even further and faster than the United States.

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

“Today’s figures lay bare the true scale of these cuts and the damage they will do. Slashing bilateral aid to Africa, where need is greatest, will have a devastating impact. These choices will leave millions without access to basic healthcare, education and urgent humanitarian support, and risk a resurgence of deadly diseases we’ve spent decades trying to fight.

“While FCDO officials have clearly worked to shield some priorities, they have been handed an impossible task. You simply cannot cut 40% from the aid budget without devastating consequences, and that will now play out in the world’s poorest countries.

“We were told these cuts were needed to plug the defence spending gap. In reality, they will barely make a difference, while greatly increasing our vulnerability to global crises and instability – and inflicting devastating consequences on millions of people worldwide.”

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors:

* The ONE Campaign estimates that cuts to vaccine programmes alone could contribute to more than 600,000 avoidable deaths worldwide in the coming years.

In 2025, the UK government cut funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, from £1.65 million to £1.25 million – a £400 million cut.

Gavi aimed to save at least 8 million lives between 2026 and 2030, and to vaccinate at least 500 million more children. To do so, at the last replenishment cycle, Gavi set a fundraising target of $11.9 billion (approximately £9 billion) for its work from 2026 to 2030.

Therefore, proportionally, a £400 million cut to Gavi is equivalent to 355,000 fewer lives saved.

In 2025, the UK also cut its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by £150 million.

The Global Fund had aimed to raise £13.5 billion, which they said would help to save 23 million lives.

Therefore, proportionally, a £150 million cut to the Global Fund is equivalent to 255,000 fewer lives saved.

About the ONE Campaign:

ONE is a global, nonpartisan organisation advocating for the investments needed to create economic opportunities and healthier lives in Africa. Since 2004, we have helped secure more than $1 trillion in new investments to build a safer, more prosperous world. Our trusted advocacy combines hard-hitting data, grassroots activism and political engagement to influence decision-makers and drive lasting change. Learn more at ONE.org