UK aid: Massive cuts in funding to world’s poorest countries to start within weeks, secret plans reveal

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Massive cuts in overseas aid to many of the world’s poorest countries will be made within weeks, according to government plans kept secret from MPs. Now proposals for the next cuts – reaching a staggering 88 per cent in Lebanon, still reeling from last year’s Beirut port explosion – are revealed in information obtained by the investigative website openDemocracy. Christian Aid in South Sudan warned that “cuts on the scale being reported couldn’t come at a worse time for a country in crisis”. And without peace, development and humanitarian work can’t succeed.” And Mohamud Mohamed Hassan, Save the Children’s director for Somalia, warned: “These reports are worse than we feared and, if true, the impact on children would be inconceivable.” MPs had made repeated attempts to obtain the details of the cuts planned, but were rebuffed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.