\n<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s deep cuts to the UK\u2019s aid budget will touch the lives of 60 million people, and underline the Britain\u2019s withdrawal from the world stage, the director of Save the Children UK has warned.<\/p>\n
Moazzam Malik, a former diplomat and civil servant, has spent the first six months in his post learning more about the plight of children in the UK and abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say, I think my generation of policymakers and politicians haven\u2019t done the greatest job in delivering a better future for children and young people and their families,\u201d he says, at the charity\u2019s London headquarters.<\/p>\n
He says that, since Boris Johnson merged the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office five years ago, the UK has increasingly stepped back from engagement with the global south.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs somebody who\u2019s spent 25 years working for Britain representing our country in international forums and on the international stage, it\u2019s a tragedy that we\u2019ve chosen to withdraw,\u201d Malik says.<\/p>\n
The Conservatives reduced aid from 0.7% of gross domestic product to 0.5% in 2020, during the Covid pandemic \u2013 and began spending a rapidly expanding share of that on housing asylum seekers in the UK.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer\u2019s government announced a further significant cut, to 0.3% of GDP, this year, to pay for defence spending , prompting the then international development minister, Anneliese Dodds, to resign.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Anneliese Dodds resigned as international development minister in protest against the further cut to aid.<\/span> Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cWe estimate that the impact of the UK aid cuts that are to come over this year and next as the government moves to 0.3% will touch about 60 million people,\u201d Malik says.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are real people\u2019s lives: access to a school closes, health services decline, cash protection support falls back. Humanitarian assistance falls back. So this will have real-world consequences. There\u2019s no way to avoid that. The scale of cuts is just much too large.\u201d<\/p>\n Dodds\u2019s successor, Jenny Chapman, has suggested the move to a \u201c0.3 world\u201d, marks a shift from \u201ccharity\u201d to a \u201cpartnership\u201d with developing countries \u2013 but Malik rejects that characterisation.<\/p>\n \u201cRespectful partnerships: yes, I agree, it\u2019s hugely important, but that is not what our partners have experienced. And indeed, as this government goes from 0.5 to 0.3, that is not what our partners will be experiencing. They will be experiencing withdrawal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a country like Pakistan or Ethiopia or in Nepal, or Indonesia or other parts of the world, their experience of Britain over these last five years is of us not being at the table, trying to work collaboratively to find solutions to the problems that we both face, but as one of exit.\u201d<\/p>\n Malik sees the UK\u2019s stance as part of a wider shift away from multilateralism in an increasingly complex geopolitical context \u2013 including a more insular US.<\/p>\n \u201cEarly on in my time as a civil servant \u2013 I joined DfID in 1997 \u2013 and through the early 2000s, there was a real sense that you could remake the world in the post cold war era and deal with global challenges in a way that was fair, equitable, and that created a better future for everyone: that you could win. And I think that opportunity has been squandered.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Starmer was said to have been adept at juggling egos and issues at tricky G7 summit this week.<\/span> Photograph: Stefan Rousseau\/AP<\/p>\n Alongside other charity leaders, he is calling on the UK government to engage at the highest level with the UN Financing for Development conference in Seville at the end of this month, which is intended to be a collective attempt to confront challenges including the mounting global debt crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be good for the prime minister to show up,\u201d he said. \u201cUK leadership requires engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n At home, Save the Children has been campaigning vociferously for the government to scrap the two-child limit that stops families receiving universal credit for their third and successive children. This month, Transport for London banned the charity\u2019s advert on the issue, deeming it to be too political.<\/p>\n Starmer has recently appeared to hint that he is preparing to move on the issue, when the government\u2019s long-awaited child poverty strategy is finally published in the autumn.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have one in three kids in the UK growing up in poverty. That\u2019s a travesty,\u201d Malik said. \u201cThe benefits system is the single quickest thing that the government could do to make a dent in child poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Jenny Chapman has suggested the move to a \u20180.3 world\u2019 marks a shift from \u2018charity\u2019 to a \u2018partnership\u2019 with developing countries.<\/span> Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n His charity also wants to see a \u201cchild lock\u201d, similar to the pensions triple lock, that would prevent low-income families falling behind.<\/p>\n Save the Children UK has been carefully rebuilding its reputation since it was condemned by the Charity Commission in 2020 for mishandling allegations of inappropriate behaviour by senior staff members between 2012 and 2015.<\/p>\n It recently published an internal review covering a much more recent period, however \u2013 late 2023 \u2013 suggesting some staff had experienced antisemitism or anti-Muslim hatred at three internal events that included discussion of the war in Gaza. Save the Children accepted the review\u2019s recommendations and apologised to \u201ccolleagues have experienced any form of hatred \u2013 whether anti-Muslim hate, antisemitism or other \u2013 in the workplace\u201d.<\/p>\n Malik welcomed the fact the review had been commissioned, and committed the charity to learning from it. \u201cAs somebody who has suffered both Islamophobia and racism personally and violently, I have no truck with hatreds of any sort,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n As Malik prepares to visit Somalia, one of the 120 countries in which Save the Children operates, he says the charity will continue to make the case for the UK to engage internationally.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a debate about the nature of the world in which we want our children and our grandchildren to grow up,\u201d he says. \u201cBritain is an open economy, in an open society. Our future is linked and intimately connected to the state of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Labour\u2019s deep cuts to the UK\u2019s aid budget will touch the lives of 60 million people, and underline the Britain\u2019s withdrawal from the world stage, the director of Save the Children UK has warned. 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