Kate Munro, Head of Advocacy, said:
‘’The Autumn Budget was unclear on the amount of Gross National Income (GNI) which should be spent on international aid. Keeping it to ‘around 0.5 per cent’ is not fair to the millions of people facing hunger throughout the world. They are buffeted by the triple effect of climate change, conflict and ever-escalating food prices and they need more than this nebulous statement.
“There are certain countries which are the bellwethers of the global hunger crisis. East Africa for one is facing crisis levels of hunger; over 21 million people are facing acute hunger and tens of thousands are living in famine conditions. We have screened 230,000 children for malnutrition over the past nine months – this number is only going to increase without rapid action to prevent a crisis becoming a catastrophe.
“A failure to increase international aid spend to 0.7% of GNI is a dereliction of duty. We have prevented famine before and we can do so again with the right political will. However, the announcement in the Budget statement, coupled with the huge cost to the aid budget of supporting refugees living in the UK, means that UK Aid going abroad has halved in recent years, just as the world faces a perfect storm of humanitarian and economic crises.”