Blowing the Whistle on Aid Cuts – UK Parliament must act to prevent looming catastrophe

The UK Government’s recent decision to halve aid to Yemen in the midst of a pandemic-era conflict-fuelled famine was rightly described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as a “death sentence”. It is clear to me, as a long-standing aid-watcher and influencer – that this rash act is not an outlier but rather one example of an emerging pattern of ill-informed and secretive decision-making, that will lead to deathly consequences and a major blow to Britain’s international standing.

Last week a whistle-blower leaked details of UK government plans to further cut aid to other major humanitarian crises with the independent news platform Open Democracy. According to a James Landale of BBC Radio 4 “the document – dated last month – suggests officials are considering cutting aid to Syria by 67% and Lebanon by 88 %. It suggests aid to Nigeria could be reduced by 58%, Somalia 60%, and the Democratic Republic of Congo by 60%.” If confirmed, this trend will represent the worst departure from the humanitarian principle of ‘do no harm’ that I have witnessed in three-plus decades of collaboration with the UK government. The reasons behind the whistle-blower’s actions are clear to me and to my colleagues – not acting would be unacceptable to any principled government servant in the aid sector.

This avoidance of responsibility and trampling of accountability should not be accepted as inevitable. For decades we have tried to build engagement with the UK government to avoid precisely this type of scenario. For over a decade I have run the key networks for finance professionals operating in the UK humanitarian and development sector, first through Mango and now Humentum. I have been in a unique position to share with DFID and now FCDO’s most senior officials and ministers our sector’s challenges through regular dialogue meetings and participation in high level steering groups. We have built strong partnerships with Bond and the Charity Finance Group to share the evidence we collect to make the best possible case for those that our members ultimately serve. Humentum’s role leading the IFR4NPO global initiative, has allowed me to meet regularly with NGO finance leaders, donors and government regulators from all over the world, to work collectively to reform how the sector operates to create a more equitable, accountable and resilient funding context for humanitarian and development work.

The message for the UK government from NGO finance leaders is clear and we have been repeating it time and time again since March 2020. “Just tell us as early as possible what you think you will be cutting and by how much, so that we can roughly plan and manage what impact this will have on the communities we serve.”

However, it is becoming clear that ministers in Government are no longer listening to the sector and that the consultative mechanisms put in place are increasingly a sham. The officials we interact with are being explicitly instructed to keep decisions and decision-making processes secret from those that they previously consulted with about such decisions. Notably, the December 2020 ICAI report on the cuts found: “government officials were instructed not to provide any information to suppliers, either about the prioritisation process or the implications for individual programmes”. Along these same lines, and despite attempts at scrutiny by our Parliament, select committees, ICAI and the NAO – we still do not actually know what aid cuts were made in July 2020 and which communities in the world they affected. Bond’s Freedom of Information request on this in was denied in February 2021.

The same secrecy is being applied to the aid cuts being made in 2021. No wonder the FCDO whistle-blower felt they had no alternative but to go to the media to prevent these life and death decisions being taken in secret. 

The saddest moments I have seen in my career have been when a collapse in the complex funding system leads to hurried exits from humanitarian programmes. The most vulnerable women and children, left stranded in locations where the food runs out or the water stops flowing. National staff from these same communities breaking down when they speak of the betrayal they feel when funds are unceremoniously cut and commitments abandoned. You can get a sense of that desperation in the voice of the Abdullah, a nurse in Yemen that was featured in the BBC’s hard-hitting report on Friday: “I feel that my soul is destroyed… What can we do for them?”.

My wish would be to put the UK government ministers now taking these decisions about cuts in the shoes of Abdullah, that nurse in Yemen, or in a room with the mothers that will be affected in these different countries. But I can’t. Instead I, and others like me, must apply influence, using the principles and mechanisms of government: the good governance and accountability available to civil society and its citizens that Britain likes to be proud of.

The breakdown in the proper checks and balances that Britain has built into government over decades now appears to be taking us back to the kind of abject failures in decision-making about famine that led to millions dying in Britain’s former Empire during more distant times. To repair this, we will need politicians of all parties to act on conscience and demand a restoration of proper accountability and transparency around aid levels, targets and priorities. Some Conservative Chairs of key Select Committees like Tobias Ellwood MP and Edward Leigh MP are beginning to demonstrate this leadership. Now more than ever we need them to add their voices to the long-standing calls for transparency and scrutiny by Sarah Champion MP, Chair of the International Development Select Committee. They must do this not just to save lives, but because they recognise the damage that such cuts can cause to Britain’s global standing and security interests.

The British people are looking on with a growing sense of moral shame about how our leaders are acting. Their lack of compassion and sheer arrogance in failing to consult with those who understand the dire consequences of their decisions.

And beyond Britain the world is watching. Global consciousness has altered thanks to the Movement for Black Lives and the increasingly visible truth-telling about lived experience that shines a light on Britain’s role in empire, colonisation and the slave trade. The UK is increasingly out of step with other global actors. The new administration in the USA and, other countries like France are increasing aid due to the recognition that no country can be safe until we all are. Now is a decisive moment when Britain can choose a path that acknowledges and seeks to repair historical harms, or we can deny these truths and continue on our current reckless orientation.

In short, it’s time to be the ‘Force for Good’, ‘Open Society’ and ‘Global Britain’ that so many of us work for, and that the UK Government’s ministers say they want, rather than taking decisions in secret that betray the trust of the world’s most vulnerable people.