The UK Working Group on NCDs strongly supports the statements by both Action for Global Health and Bond in response to the UK Government’s devastating announcement today of the cut in the UK’s overseas development assistance budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income to fund increases in defence spending.
This comes as yet another hammer blow to global health and sustainable development, following an earlier cut from 0.7% under the previous government and the recent decisions by the Trump Administration to withdraw from the World Health Organization and to suspend USAID. Now is the time to double down on our commitments, not pull away from them. There is a clear and present threat to global health security, without which none of us are secure.
The UKWG calls on the Prime Minister to reconsider this decision as a matter of urgency, to the benefit of many thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people and to ensure health and prosperity both abroad and at home.
UK Working Group on NCDs 