Government cuts to international aid spending mean the UK is losing hard-won gains for the rights of women and girls around the world, a new report by MPs has warned. The cross-party International Development Committee said reductions in funding, staffing and expertise are undermining Britain’s ability to support women and girls in conflict-affected countries.
The committee said the government’s commitment to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda “appears to be waning”, despite rising global instability and increasing threats to women’s rights. “The future of the Women, Peace and Security agenda hangs in the balance,” MPs said in the report, warning that the government is “at risk of inflicting damage to its reputation” and “standing idly by whilst hard-won gains in global gender equality are lost.”
The most immediate pressure comes from cuts to official development assistance, reduced from 0.7 per cent of national income to 0.5 per cent in recent years – and now to 0.3 per cent. Funding women’s rights organisations has been slashed by as much as two-thirds, with MPs warning that this “compromises the delivery” of key programmes and “regresses the work of the UK and its partners.” These cuts translate into fewer girls in school, reduced humanitarian support and diminished access to healthcare.
Writing in The Independent, the chair of the International Committee, Labour's Sarah Champion said: “It is getting increasingly hard to square the encouraging rhetoric we have heard... with the reality of what is happening on the ground.” She added: “As we get the detail of the latest aid cuts, the full impact on women and girls is yet to come... We need to see ministers backing up their rhetoric with substantive action and adequate funding.”
Ministers insist priorities around the rights of women and girls remain intact, but MPs point to a hollowing-out of capacity within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where staffing cuts and a loss of gender expertise are said to be undermining delivery. The committee also identifies a deeper structural weakness with a lack of transparency, noting there is no clear, ring-fenced budget for WPS programmes.
The committee is calling on ministers to set out how future programmes will be funded and to ensure that support for women and girls remains a priority. “Gender equality should not become a footnote in UK diplomacy,” they warn, urging ministers to use Britain’s influence to “strengthen the implementation” of its commitments.
