The UK is expected to slash its contribution to a leading aid fund combating preventable diseases, with charities warning this could lead to more than 300,000 otherwise preventable deaths.
If confirmed, the anticipated 20% cut in the UK contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, would be announced on the sidelines of next month’s G20 summit in South Africa, which Keir Starmer is due to attend.
Aid groups said such a reduction, on top of a 30% cut to the UK contribution at the previous funding round for the group three years ago, would further risk years of progress in combating the disease after Donald Trump slashed US aid.
While no decision has been publicly announced before the Global Fund’s “replenishment” summit, covering 2027-29, aid groups say a proposed reduction in UK funding from £1bn to £800m is being widely discussed by senior government officials.
If confirmed, it would follow a 25% reduction in UK money towards another aid organisation seen as being highly efficient in saving lives, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi). The eventual £1.25bn commitment over five years to Gavi was nonetheless higher than many aid agencies had feared.
The Switzerland-based Global Fund is credited with helping to save tens of million of lives in combating the three diseases. One aid agency estimated a £200m cut could lead to up to 340,000 avoidable deaths and nearly 5.9 million avoidable infections over the three-year funding period.
Gareth Jenkins, an executive director at Malaria No More UK, said: “The world stands on the brink of a malaria resurgence, which will be so much more likely triggered if the UK makes a cut to its contribution to the Global Fund.
“In this scenario many more children will lose their lives, health systems will be overwhelmed and economies dragged down – with huge knock-on effects for UK trade and health security.”
Mike Podmore, the chief executive of StopAids, said the cut “would send a terrible message”, particularly as the UK is officially co-hosting next month’s funding event.
Podmore said: “Not only did the UK already make a 30% cut three years ago, but to date no host has ever reduced their commitment from their previous pledge. This would represent a serious lack of leadership and undermine the UK’s reputation and soft power.”
Adrian Lovett, the UK head of the development campaign One, said the cut would “put at risk decades of progress in the fight against Aids, TB and malaria – and as diseases do not stop at borders, it would jeopardise our own health security here at home too”.
Monica Harding, the Liberal Democrats’ international development spokesperson, said cutting funding as co-host would be “an indictment of our global leadership in diplomacy and development”.
She said: “Stepping back now and reducing our contribution to the fund at a time when the United States is abandoning vaccination programmes wholesale would be devastating to some of the world’s most vulnerable people. It would risk undoing much of the progress we have made in the global fight against disease.”
The Foreign Office was contacted for comment.
