UK cuts education aid even as its global summit approaches

The Global Education Summit is set to be co-hosted by the United Kingdom and Kenya starting Wednesday, but grave concerns remain over reductions in education and reproductive health programs caused by the U.K. aid budget cuts.

Despite being months into the new financial year, uncertainty lingers over the fate of some education programs, raising suspicions that the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office is waiting until after the summit is over before informing NGOs of cuts.

“We know that the U.K.’s aid to girls’ education has been disproportionately cut by around 40%, despite this being a stated commitment of the prime minister,” said Pauline Rose, director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning Centre at the University of Cambridge. “However, it still seems to be unclear precisely where these cuts are hitting. I wonder if specific details of this are being held back until after the upcoming Global Education Summit.”

An FCDO spokesperson denied that it had withheld information about the cuts, maintaining that girl’s education is a “major priority” for the government.

The summit aims to raise $5 billion for the Global Partnership for Education’s 2021-2025 funding. The U.K. already pledged £430 million over five years at June’s summit of the G-7 group of nations, though this fell short of the £600 million that advocates said was needed. The commitment was also criticized for lacking transparency around whether the donation was all newly announced money. “The UK is the largest bilateral donor to the replenishment and this is our highest ever pledge, with an uplift of 15%,” a spokesperson for FCDO told Devex.

Critics have said the summit pledges are not comparable because this year’s replenishment covers five years while previous rounds were just for three years.

The pledge was made at the same time that NGOs providing education services were forced to reduce their programs as a result of U.K. budget cuts, which came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government moved the country’s aid-spending target from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income. Development analysts estimated that aid spending on education was cut by more than 40%, but the precise picture remains unclear, with some NGOs saying the government’s approach to reducing the aid budget has been too opaque.

Devex has previously reported some of the aid cuts affecting education, but more have emerged as the education summit approaches. The Girls’ Education Challenge, launched in 2012, was the flagship education program for the U.K. Department for International Development, which was folded into FCDO last year. Devex has been told by a source with knowledge of GEC that total cuts to its projects average around 25%, with some suffering more than others.

Plan International UK said £730,000 was cut from its GEC projects in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Sierra Leone. “However, we know that other organizations have seen deeper cuts to their GEC programs,” added spokesperson Tom Phillips.

The International Rescue Committee reported a 15% cut to its GEC work in Pakistan, alongside a 2% trim to GEC projects in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, Save the Children reported a cut of £123,000 to the evaluation phase of its GEC work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which will “risk undoing decades of progress on girls’ education and will impact generations to come,” according to Amavi Akpamagbo, DRC country director at Save the Children.

In Somalia, GEC work done by CARE International UK was cut by 10%, according to CEO Laurie Lee, while a project in Zimbabwe was reduced by 5% and will be renewed. Meanwhile, Voluntary Service Overseas CEO Philip Goodwin told Devex the organization's GEC work in Nepal was cut by 7%, while in Kenya it was trimmed by 3%.

Tom Dannatt, CEO at Street Child, said the organization’s GEC work in Nepal was cut by £25,000, while a girls’ education program in South Sudan was reduced by 35%. Street Child’s education work has suffered other cuts, previously prompting Dannatt to tell Devex the education pledges made by the G-7 made “no sense.”

Cuts to other aspects of the U.K. aid program that support girls staying in school — such as the loss of £450,000 for a Plan UK program tackling violence against women and girls in Malawi — have also been criticized. Sexual and reproductive health programs — recognized by GEC as a core aspect of educating girls — have been hit especially hard by the cuts, which included an 85% reduction in funding to a United Nations Population Fund service, making many health programs unworkable.

Simon Cooke, CEO at MSI Reproductive Choices, said it was “just nuts, frankly,” for the government not to maintain support for contraception and sexual and reproductive health while spending on girls' education. Sexual education and contraception mean “many, many more girls will remain in school,” Cooke told Devex.

Update, July 27, 2021: This article has been updated with extra reporting to reflect FCDO’s response, and corrected to indicate the amount cut from Plan International UK’s GEC projects.