The UK government has admitted that drastic aid cuts under the former Conservative administration in 2021 contributed to the worsening famine in Yemen and disrupted key development projects across the Middle East and East Africa.
International development minister Annaliese Dodds described the £4 billion funding reduction as “damaging” and a cause of “chaos”, acknowledging that the consequences were still being felt today.
“This had a direct impact on that programme, and we’re determined not to see a return to that chaos, to have a much longer-term approach,” she said.
This had a particularly detrimental effect on Yemen, a country where around 450,000 severely malnourished children are at risk of death, according to the UN agency UNICEF.
The Yemen famine, ongoing since 2016, may have killed an estimated 85,000 children due to extreme hunger or disease, according to the charity Save the Children.
The funding cuts, coupled with imports being limited through the Hodeidah port, accelerated starvation in the country.
According to various reports, Boris Johnson, who served as prime minister during the funding cuts, made the decision citing economic challenges amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dodds maintained that the impacts of the decision can still be felt today, adding she would like to see a “restoration of the UK’s reputation on international development”.
The New Arab reached out to Dodds and the Conservative Party for further comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The revelation comes at a time when the UK is also assessing the impact of US President Donald Trump’s cuts to USAID on its efforts to tackle hunger in global operations.
Dodds said her department was communicating with the US government and “looking for opportunities to influence, based on our shared objectives in the US”.
While she did not deny that some UK projects could be affected by Trump’s cuts, the decision has already caused much debate.
So far, the most significant impact is on Jordanian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Palestinian recipients of aid as well as multilateral and non-profit organisations that benefit from specific programs, most notably the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The US has also already decreased non-military aid to Tunisia and Egypt due to democratic backsliding, but the Trump administration reportedly assured Middle Eastern governments that aid would be resumed after the review.
