Beyond aid cuts, 3 major signs the UK is abandoning development

Before the U.K.’s Labour Party took office in July 2024, development advocates had reason for optimism. The 2024 manifesto pledged to rebuild Britain’s global leadership on development and restore the country’s development spending to its previous level of 0.7% of gross national income. But a year later, those hopes are fading, with many in the sector now concerned about the government’s commitment to those promises. The clearest signal that Labour has turned its back on the sector remains the drastic cut to the country’s aid budget from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3% by 2027, announced in February. But there are others. Here are three signs that the U.K. is deprioritizing development — and why they matter. 1. Lack of ministerial visibility and influence Baroness Jenny Chapman, the currently serving development minister, has a lifetime peerage in the House of Lords, rather than an elected role in the House of Commons, making her the first member of the Lords to hold the development brief since 2003. Some in the sector view this as a problem, questioning whether her unelected position limits her accountability. Chapman is also serving as the minister for Latin America and the Caribbean. Some previous International development ministers, such as Andrew Mitchell and Anneliese Dodds, were high-profile, experienced figures who championed development publicly — though Dodds, like Chapman, had to juggle the brief portfolio with another, simultaneously serving as minister for women and equalities. Chapman ostensibly has no experience in international development — and has been left without junior ministerial support for her brief or a dedicated “special adviser,” a political appointee who provides strategic guidance. “I don’t see any indication that the present U.K. government is going to return to the version of aid and development that we’ve known for some decades now.” --— Brendan Whitty, development academic and former consultant for the defunct Department for International Development “I’ve never known a Secretary of State or Minister for Development not [to] have their own SpAd [special adviser],” a source familiar with FCDO operations who did not wish to be named told Devex. “The idea that a non-expert minister would leave themselves, when having to make knotty cuts, without advice they are entitled to, and instead accept the advice of the SpAd of someone whose incentives are pointing in a different direction, strikes me as either a conflict of interest at best or not trying.” Since taking up the role in February, Chapman has made two publicly documented trips to Africa – to Chad and to South Africa, where she spoke at the Group of 20 major economies’ development ministers' meeting in July. However, the lack of high-profile engagement and leadership on key issues has led to concerns about the visibility and influence of the development portfolio. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, or FCDO, has also declined multiple requests from Devex to speak with Chapman, further contributing to a perception of disengagement with the development community. 2. There’s still no development strategy After more than a year in power, Labour has yet to set out a vision for U.K. development policy. There’s no published strategy and while that in itself may not be unusual — past strategies have taken years to materialize — coming after a change in party leadership, the lack of any interim framework or policy direction is striking, according to development professionals. A particularly revealing example is the unpublished Shafik review. In 2024, former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was commissioned to determine whether FCDO was fit for purpose. The review was completed, but the FCDO has resisted releasing it, despite multiple Freedom of Information requests. Against this backdrop, recent government figures now detail the scale of spending changes across development priorities. On July 22, the government published its annual report and accounts for 2024-25, detailing aid spending to March 2026. Bilateral aid to Africa is set to drop by 12%; while health spending will fall by nearly 46%; and education, gender, and equality spending by 42%. The government’s own equality impact assessment notes these reductions will increase the “disease burden,” hurt “the most vulnerable,” and particularly affect women, children, and people with disabilities. Some high-profile initiatives are already casualties of the cuts: The Fleming Fund, a £265 million ($358.9 million) program to combat antimicrobial resistance, has been closed, prompting concerns about the U.K.’s role in global health security. Advocacy organizations hoping to praise the government’s direction say they’re coming up empty-handed. “There is literally nothing,” said Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy and advocacy at Bond, the U.K. network for NGOs. “When we try to do a classic ‘shit sandwich’ in our comms — something positive, something negative, then something hopeful -– we struggle to find anything for that first slice of bread.” However, there are signs of a shift in focus. Nick Dyer, the second permanent undersecretary at FCDO, recently outlined the government's recalibrated approach to international development priorities during a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. He claimed the government is “completely resetting” how it allocates official development assistance, or ODA, with a sharpened focus on four areas: humanitarian aid, climate, global health, and economic development and jobs. He added that the U.K. was “less a donor and more an investor,” and that it is doing “less grant allocation and more technical assistance and support.” In June, the U.K. pledged £1.25 billion to the Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance — which Adrian Lovett of the ONE Campaign saw as a sign for cautious optimism about the U.K.’s upcoming international responsibilities. He predicted that the U.K. would take on the G20 presidency in 2027 and the G7 presidency in 2028. “It's quickly becoming clear to people within government that they need to bring something strong to those opportunities,” Lovett said. “There’s some hope here, but we need to see a real commitment from leadership. Without that, the next steps are unclear.” 3. The system itself is shrinking FCDO is undergoing a significant restructuring, with plans to reduce its head count by 15%-25% by 2029. This includes a reduction in directors from approximately 50 to 30 and directors-general from nine to seven, with some required to reapply for revised roles. Rabinowitz has expressed concern that development staff within FCDO will bear the brunt of these cuts. After previous reductions and the rushed merger of the defunct Department for International Development, or DFID, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2020, much of the sector’s capacity and expertise have already been severely undermined, he believes. “Further reductions will narrow development expertise within the FCDO and damage the UK’s credibility as a trusted global development partner at a time when global challenges demand urgent attention,” he said in a statement. Others see a deeper shift underway. “I don’t see any indication that the present U.K. government is going to return to the version of aid and development that we’ve known for some decades now,” said Brendan Whitty, a development academic and former consultant for DFID. “We seem to be at a point of a paradigm shift in the way we as a country engage with patterns of global poverty, inequality. The last shift of this scale was probably the 1980s. The question is what the next paradigm is going to be — will it be more development finance, or will we see progressive approaches to addressing global structural issues?”