GAPS Network statement: 2025: A year for Gender Equality – Not Cuts

Members of the GAPS Network, of which WILPF UK is a member, have issued a joint statement expressing deep concern at the UK Government’s deprioritisation of gender equality and the rights of women and girls as a standalone focus in its Official Development Assistance (ODA). This marks a significant and damaging shift in UK foreign policy – at a time of rising global conflict, anti-gender movements, and increasing risks to women and girls.

The GAPS Network urges the UK Government to urgently reverse this decision, reinstate gender equality as a core aid priority, and protect dedicated funding for women and girls.

2025: A year for Gender Equality – Not Cuts.

The GAPS Network Responds to UK depriotisation of Gender​

GAPS is deeply concerned by recent remarks from Baroness Jenny Chapman to the International Development Committee, which appear to confirm that gender equality and women and girls are no longer considered a standalone priority within the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) – resulting in the loss of all gender focused programmes. This marks a significant and deeply damaging shift in UK foreign policy. At a time of rising anti-gender movements and when women and girls are disproportionately affected by conflict, displacement, and climate breakdown, deprioritising gender equality within ODA is a direct abandonment of the UK’s commitments to human rights, international law, and global development.

Successive UK Governments have championed gender equality as a cornerstone of the UK’s international work – recognising that the advancement and the protection of women’s and girls’ rights is essential to achieving sustainable peace, development, and security. The decision to remove this as a priority not only undermines this legacy but has real and devastating consequences for the lives of women and girls around the world. It risks withdrawing vital funding from frontline women-led organisations and reversing progress across critical areas including education, health care, protection from violence, and women’s meaningful participation and leadership in peace, mediation and political processes.

This decision is particularly damning in 2025, the year marking both the 25th anniversary of the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action – two landmark global commitments to gender equality, peace, and justice. The UK, a penholder of the WPS agenda at the UN Security Council, and one of the first countries to adopt a National Action Plan on WPS, has long claimed leadership in this space. To roll back support for women and girls now – as the number of violent conflicts across the world have doubled in the last five years – sends a deeply contradictory and harmful message to international partners and to the grassroots women’s rights organisations and women peacebuilders who continue to deal with the aftermath of conflict and work to prevent its recurrence.

At a time when the UK is publicly seeking to strengthen partnerships with the Global South, this shift in ODA priorities undermines those very partnerships by diverting resources away from gender equality and development. This does not make the UK – or the world – safer. On the contrary, it undermines peacebuilding efforts, erodes trust, and increases the likelihood of violence and conflict.

We call on the UK Government to urgently clarify how these cuts will impact women and girls and gender equality programming. The Government must reaffirm its commitment to gender equality- and protect principal funding to gender equality- cuts. They must ensure that gender equality and women and girls remains a standalone priority. We urge the Government to ring fence funding to women and girls and gender equality programming as has been the case in previous ODA budget reductions. We urge Parliamentarians to scrutinise this decision, and to stand with advocates and civil society who have made clear that cutting support to women and girls is unacceptable. The UK must not turn away from its responsibilities at a time when global solidarity, principled leadership, and meaningful investment in peace and equality are more essential than ever.

About GAPS:
Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS) is the UK’s Women, Peace and Security civil society network. We are a membership organisation of 18 multi-mandate international NGOs, peacebuilding organisations, women’s rights
organisations and human rights organisations.