Death by aid cuts: Oxfam reaction to OECD preliminary data on aid spending in 2025

In response to the publication today of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) preliminary data on Official Development Assistance (ODA) for 2025, Shahd Mousalli, Senior Humanitarian Influencing Advisor at Oxfam GB, said:

“Wealthy governments – including the UK - are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men and children in the Global South with these severe aid cuts. They collectively slashed aid by 23% in 2025. Based on aid’s crucial role in combating diseases like HIV-AIDS and malaria, the Institute of Global Health of Barcelona estimated that global aid cuts of such magnitude would kill hundreds of thousands of people in 2025 alone. If this trend continues, aid cuts could kill over 9 million people by 2030.

At a time where aid cuts are already driving instability and fostering greater inequality, governments are cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarization. Cuts from donors including the UK, Germany and the US, will be felt by the world’s poorest.

Against a backdrop of intensifying climate disasters, growing conflict and rollback on human rights and gender equality, Oxfam calls on the UK Government to support its policy commitments on international development and climate action by stepping up with sustained and adequate funding to ensure progress.

With development budgets being slashed around the world, UK aid cuts - which are set to be the steepest of any G7 country this year - risk widening the gap between strategic ambitions and actual delivery of necessary and impactful work where it is most needed.

This is an unnecessary choice. There are other, far fairer ways for the Government to raise revenue, such as taxing the super-rich and making the biggest polluters pay.”