The decision to breach a pledge by slashing aid funding from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5% is not only shameful but shortsighted
What’s another broken promise? Boris Johnson’s government has doubtless lost count of all those left strewn in its wake. So the news that Britain is abandoning its pledge to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid, enshrined in law by David Cameron and reaffirmed in the Conservative manifesto only a year ago, is not as surprising as it should be. The dismantling of the Department for International Development, now folded into the Foreign Office, demonstrated where things were heading despite denials that funding would suffer. The almost 30% cut is highly unlikely to be, as some hoped, a temporary measure.
The moral case for preserving the promise was clear. Even putting aside for a moment the historical rationale, or the extraordinary current levels of global inequality, the effects of reneging on a commitment to some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people will be devastating. Lady Sugg, a Foreign Office minister, resigned over the decision. Andrew Mitchell, a Conservative MP and former international development secretary, has called it outrageous, laying out its likely impact: a million fewer girls receiving an education; 3.8 million people left without access to clean water; 5.6m fewer vaccinations – and 100,000 preventable deaths, mainly among children.
