London, United Kingdom, July 22, 2025 — Responding to the publication of the FCDO annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, Flora Alexander, IRC UK Executive Director, said,
“The FCDO’s annual accounts reveal the first damaging impacts of the government’s decision to further slash the UK’s official development assistance (ODA) budget. We’re especially concerned about reductions in bilateral support to fragile and conflict-affected states including Somalia and South Sudan - places where aid is most needed and highly effective. Cuts to health and gender programming will hit the most vulnerable communities hardest and roll back hard-won gains. With fewer resources, the UK must focus its aid where it can have the greatest impact - on countries at the sharpest intersection of conflict, climate shocks and extreme poverty, and invest in proven, cost-effective solutions we know deliver for the communities that need them most.”
The cuts are being exacerbated by the ongoing diversion of ODA to cover in-donor refugee costs. While this spending supports essential services for people seeking asylum in the UK, it is being drawn from a budget meant to tackle poverty and crisis overseas.
The Government has pledged to end the use of temporary accommodation for people seeking asylum, but we have no guarantee that these resources will return to the aid budget or reach the people and places who need them most. The government must commit to investing savings back into supporting the world’s most marginalised communities."