UK: Women’s health at risk from aid cuts, Foreign Office warned

London: Hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of UK aid cuts in 2023-24, Foreign Office ministers were warned in an internal assessment.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published its programme allocations for the next two years last month, showing that official development assistance (ODA) spend is due to rise marginally in 2023-24 and then increase by 12% in 2024-25 to £8.3bn.

While the projections signal an increase, ODA spend is yet to return to pre-2020 levels, which is when the government decided to reduce it temporarily from 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to 0.5%.

An equality impact assessment conducted by the FCDO was provided to ministers earlier this year to inform their decisions on where significant cuts to the budget for 2023-24 would fall.

The assessment, provided to and published by the International Development Committee, gave several examples showing the potential effects on groups with protected characteristics due to reductions in spend on programmes that specifically target vulnerable and marginalised groups.

In particular, it highlighted the consequences for women’s health and wellbeing, leading to unsafe abortions and maternal deaths.

In relation to women and girls in Afghanistan, it said: “Due to the scale of the ODA reductions (76%) in Afghanistan, the FCDO will not be able to support critical services for women and girls.

“Since returning to power, the Taliban has imposed restrictions on women and girls; preventing them from enjoying their human rights and systematically erasing them from public spaces.

“Therefore, reducing funding will potentially leave some of the most vulnerable women and girls in the world without critical services.”

On sexual and reproductive health rights, it said about Pan Africa: “Spend reductions on the women’s integrated sexual health programme will mean that the results for women and girls would be reduced by approximately 60%.

“The number of ‘couple years of protection’ provided will drop from nearly 3 million to around 1.1 million; the number of unsafe abortions averted from nearly 300,000 to approximately 115,000; number of maternal deaths averted will drop from 2,531 to just over 1,000.”

On Yemen, the report added: “Half a million women and children in Yemen will not receive healthcare and fewer preventable deaths will be avoided. It may cause lasting damage to health systems in Yemen, if other donors are unable to fund.”

According to the assessment, girls’ education in Ethiopia will also be compromised and violence against women and girls in South Sudan and Somalia will not receive adequate attention and response.

Moreover, cuts to disability, religion, and LGBTQ+ inclusion efforts in various countries will affect vulnerable groups, limiting access to improved learning environments, healthcare, and support services.

In a letter sent alongside the full equality impact assessment to the Labour chair of the International Development Committee, Sarah Champion, the Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said the report had been “a key component of allocation decision-making”.

Mitchell also included a paper showing the adjustments that were made in response to equality considerations and to “ensure support reached the most vulnerable”.

The paper said the “limited funds meant not all equality impacts could be mitigated but, using in-year underspends and other resources identified by officials, FCDO ministers made adjustments, which included the following 23-24 funding uplifts targeted at helping the most vulnerable and those with a relevant protected characteristic”.

The funding uplifts included an increase to Afghanistan’s 2023-34 allocation by £41m, to £100m to allow the continuation of humanitarian and women and girls’ programmes, and an increase to Yemen’s 2023-24 allocation by £32m, to £87m, for the humanitarian response.

There was also an increase to Syria’s allocation by £30m, to £77m, and to Somalia’s allocation by £30m, to £90m, while providing £12m to central humanitarian and health programmes focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, and £21m to non-governmental organisations supporting the most vulnerable.

Champion said: “By the FCDO’s own assessment, critical support to tackle malnutrition will not be delivered. Programmes aimed at reaching those furthest behind – including women, girls and people with disabilities – will be cut. Hundreds of thousands more women once again face unsafe abortions, thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth.

“There will be a further political hit to the UK’s leadership on global and regional programmes. These must have been intolerable decisions for officials to make, and it is hard to see how the terrible impact set out here sits with FCDO’s recently restated commitment to ‘persuade more of our fellow citizens that international development is core to our own national interest as well as the right thing to do’.

“It is crucial that promised uplifts in the planned allocations for 2024-25 go to the people with protected characteristics who, by FCDO’s own assessment, have borne the brunt of these cuts.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “UK aid spending is due to increase to £8.3bn next year, and will be focused on programmes addressing humanitarian crises, protecting women and girls and supporting the world’s most vulnerable, while delivering value for money for taxpayers.

“While the budget for low-income countries has had to be reduced in the short term to achieve our savings target, it is due to nearly double for these countries the year after, including in Africa where aid will rise from £646m to £1.364bn.”