According to the Centre for Global Development, approximately £3 billion is being used to house refugees, primarily from Ukraine (CGD).
According to development specialists, the United Kingdom is now spending more of its aid budget at home than in impoverished nations.
According to the Centre for Global Development, a significant chunk of the fund — over £3 billion — is used to house refugees, primarily from Ukraine (CGD).
The UK aid budget is approximately £11 billion, with approximately £4 billion allocated to multilateral organizations such as the World Bank.
More than half of the remaining £7 billion administered directly by the UK will be spent domestically this year, including around £3 billion on housing refugees, according to CGD data.
Under internationally agreed rules, the UK is permitted to count refugee-hosting costs as official development assistance (ODA). However, the UK is one of only a handful of countries – and the only G7 country – to fund all the costs of Ukrainian refugees from its existing aid budget, according to a Washington and London-based think tank.
During his tenure as chancellor, Rishi Sunak was criticized for reducing the budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of national revenue, for setting a precedent by allowing the Home Office and other agencies to use the pot, and for extending the limits of what may be counted as help.
Ranil Dissanayake, the policy fellow at CGD, remarked, “The development budget – the money we set aside to assist the world’s poorest people – is being squeezed from all sides.
“Not only was it lowered by about a third, but as chancellor Rishi Sunak set a precedent for allowing other departments to claim whatever they could from this pot.
“Saying that we spend 0.5% of our national revenue on aid is becoming meaningless when such a large percentage of this pot is squandered domestically rather than on aiding those enduring immense misery around the globe.”
Important Tory dissident nominated to Foreign Office
Andrew Mitchell, one of the major Tory MPs who rebelled against Mr. Sunak’s aid budget cuts last year, has been designated development minister in the Foreign Office by the prime minister.
The nomination was deemed noteworthy because Mr. Mitchell, a former secretary of international development, might boost pressure on Mr. Sunak to honor his vow to return international aid funding to 0.7% of GDP by 2024–25.
However, the prime minister is reportedly considering freezing the budget for an additional two years, saving £4bn per year, as he searches for methods to plug a multibillion-pound budgetary black hole, as reported by the Telegraph.
A representative for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office stated, “Across government, there are major constraints on the 0.5% ODA budget due to the costs of hosting Afghan and Ukrainian refugees as well as broader migration difficulties.” It is impossible to predict the number of migrants who will arrive during any given period, hence there is no fixed cost.
We continue to be one of the world’s largest assistance contributors, spending over £11 billion on help in 2021, and UK aid has lately been provided to individuals in need in the Horn of Africa and Pakistan.
