Blog: Protecting children, protecting the future
Why the UK must safeguard international aid for children
18 December 2025
As global crises multiply, pandemics, climate shocks, conflict, and economic instability, the world’s most vulnerable children are being pushed further into poverty and deprivation. At this critical juncture, the UK government’s decisions on international aid’s allocations will not only shape the lives of millions of children but also define the nation’s legacy and leadership.
The human cost of aid cuts: children left behind
Recent years have seen a dramatic reduction in the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) and a de-prioritisation of aid going overseas. The consequences have been stark: by 2023, child-focused bilateral aid had fallen by 57% since 2019, compared to a 42% drop in overall bilateral aid. Key sectors supporting children including education, nutrition, and health, have seen even steeper declines. Bilateral aid for education fell by 58%, and nutrition by 73%.
If this approach continues with the upcoming announcement about the allocation of the ODA budget over the coming years, child-focused aid could fall by more than £600 million by 2028, the equivalent of cutting half of the UK’s bilateral aid to Africa in 2023. The UK’s ODA spending on children would be less than half of what it was in 2019. The impact of that on children will inevitably be devastating, and it will manifest in multiple ways.
Child Poverty: A Global Emergency
Child poverty remains a pressing global challenge, undermining children’s rights, health, education, and future opportunities. Nearly one in five children globally, 412 million, live in extreme monetary poverty, surviving on less than $3 per day. Children are twice as likely as adults to experience extreme poverty, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounting for 88% of children in extreme poverty. Over half of children in low- and middle-income countries face severe deprivation in areas like education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, and clean water.
Progress in reducing child poverty has stalled, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where extreme child poverty rates remain unchanged. The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and rising conflict have all contributed to this stagnation. Crucially, declining international aid has forced governments to cut essential services for children. Global ODA is expected to decrease by 18% in 2025 and by 27% in 2026, with the UK’s 40% cut a key driver of this trend.
Education: A Broken Promise to both this and the next generation
Every pound cut from education aid is more than a budgetary adjustment -it is a blow to the future of millions of children. UNICEF analysis projects that international aid to education will fall by US$3.2 billion by 2026, a 24% drop. If these cuts proceed, an estimated 6 million more children risk being out of school by the end of 2026, with 30% of them in humanitarian settings. This is more than all primary schools’ pupils in the UK.
The consequences are starkest for the most vulnerable. In places like the Rohingya refugee camps, 350,000 children are at risk of losing access to basic education permanently. School feeding programmes, often the only source of nutritious meals for many children, face 57% cuts. Girls’ education, a hard-won area of progress, is threatened by a 28% reduction in gender-focused aid, risking a reversal of gains in gender parity.
The economic cost is equally severe. A US$856 million (34%) drop in primary education aid could result in a potential US$164 billion lost in lifetime earnings for affected children.
HIV: The Catastrophic Cost of Inaction
The story is similar in the fight against HIV. Over the past 25 years, global solidarity and investment have averted 4.4 million HIV infections in children and 2.1 million child AIDS-related deaths. Yet, funding cuts now threaten to undo this progress. Without sufficient resources, a 50% reduction in intervention coverage could result in an additional 1.1 million children acquiring HIV and 820,000 more children dying from AIDS-related causes by 2040. In the worst-case scenario, three million children would acquire HIV and nearly 1.8 million would die by 2040, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa. This is mainly due to loss of funding to prevention programmes protecting young women and adolescent girls against HIV, and HIV treatment and testing facilities for mothers and children.
These are not statistics, they are children with dreams, families, and futures. The loss of essential services, medicines, and community support due to funding cuts is already being felt, with declines in HIV testing, treatment, and prevention for mothers and children.
What can the UK do to ensure children are not left behind?
Investing in children is not only the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do. Every $1 invested in children through ODA returns $10 in benefits to children and the broader community.
Therefore, The UK government has a choice: to lead, or to fail millions of children around the world. The evidence and moral case for protecting aid to children is overwhelming. The following actions are urgently needed:
- Spend at least 25% of ODA children: this would ideally mean a 27% increase to the education budget, 10% increase to the health budget, and 53% increase to the WASH budget (according to the 2024 spent)1. It also means spending at least 50% of the UK international climate finance on climate adaptation that ensures children can continue to access vital health and education services.
- Establish a Children’s Department in the FCDO and appoint a Special Representative for Children, embedding child rights impact assessments into decision-making.
- Phase out completely the use of ODA for in-donor refugee costs (IDRCs) within the next three years, ensuring all savings are returned to the ODA budget.
- Outline a clear pathway to returning the aid budget to 0.7% of GNI, fulfilling the government’s legal and manifesto commitments.
The UK’s leadership in international development has saved and transformed millions of lives. Now, at a moment of global uncertainty, it is vital to protect and prioritise aid for children. The choices made today will determine whether the UK continues to be a force for good in the world or whether it allows hard-won progress to unravel.
For every child, for every future, the time to act is now.
By Najib Bajali, Senior policy adviser – International development finance
