In this briefing, we set out recent trends in the UK’s official development assistance (ODA). The UK is the fifth largest donor and historically has focused its ODA on where it is most needed. However, since 2020 the UK aid budget has been subject to several rounds of cuts, despite global need in low- and middle-income countries increasing due tothe Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The speed and severity of these cuts1 have damaged relationships with several key partners and impacted the UK’s ability to deliver on some of its development objectives, such as promoting food security.

2 The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in particular has seen sharp cuts to its bilateral programmes: aside from total UK aid expenditure falling, an increasing amount of it has been absorbed by rising in-donor refugee costs; spent through other departments; or counted as vaccine donations (that many have argued should not be included in ODA3 at all). Furthermore, aid cuts were  disproportionately concentrated in Africa, the region with arguably the greatest need.