Following the recent announcement that the UK government plans to cut the Overseas Development Assistance funding to support an increased defence budget, we wrote to Prime Minister, Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary, David Lammy to add our voice to the many organisations urging them to reverse the cut to the aid budget.
Dear Prime Minister,
Cutting development aid does not increase security
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has over 100 years’ experience seeking out the root causes of war and conflict, working through WILPF’s consultative status at the United Nations, and using negotiation and conciliation to bring an end to conflict. Our Manifesto, shared with you in advance of the 2024 election, included the following summary:
WILPF requests the government to enable and empower women to champion peace, demilitarisation and gender-just climate solutions from the local to international levels. It is essential to amplify women’s demands and incorporate feminist perspectives for peace and climate justice in policy-making and international agreements. We encourage the government to work consultatively and collaboratively with civil society, women rights organisations and experts on these issues.
On 25 February, your government announced its commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GNI1 by April 2027. However, this comes at the expense of the UK’s aid budget. Rather than restoring this to 0.7% of GNI, as promised in Labour’s Manifesto, you are cutting the UK aid budget by 40% to 0.3% of GNI, the lowest level in a generation. We would, of course, challenge the need for any increase in defence spending. You could shift funding from nuclear to conventional weapons or implement a wealth tax – instead you are making the poorest people in the world pay the price.
The Labour government’s decision to further slash the aid budget while increasing defence spending is a stark reinforcement of militarism at the expense of those most vulnerable. Despite claims that women and girls are at the heart of UK foreign policy, these cuts tell a different story – one where political will is directed towards militarisation rather than meaningful investment in peace, security and gender equality. You cannot build a safe and secure world through military spending.
Since the UK reduced its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) commitment from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI, gender-focused funding has seen a disproportionate decline. CARE’s recent report2 revealed that UK aid for gender equality fell from £6.3bn in 2019 to £3.4bn in 2022 – the lowest on record since reporting began in 2014. With the latest round of cuts, this decline will only deepen.
At a time when the UK claims to be strengthening partnerships with the Global South, it is instead undermining them by diverting resources away from development and gender equality and into militarisation. This shift does not make the UK or the world safer – it makes conflict more likely. The UK’s arms sales have already made it complicit in human rights violations by countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. An expanded defence budget, framed as a response to global insecurity, risks further entrenching cycles of violence rather than addressing their root causes.
I am therefore writing on behalf of WILPF UK to add our voice to the many organisations both in the UK and internationally to urge you to reverse the cut to the aid budget, and to refocus the budget on constructive development in the Global South.
We look forward to hearing your response.
Yours in peace,
WILPF UK Executive Committee
27th March 2025
