The UK has been accused of “quietly” axing virtually all aid money to Sierra Leone, including a a £35m grant for maternal and newborn health – the first example to emerge of a country losing out in the government’s plans to shrink the global development budget by 40 per cent.
The UK-funded programme to Sierra Leone was providing essential medicines and training in hospitals, as well as working to ensure access to blood and testing for preventable causes of maternal death like pre-eclampsia (a serious complication causing high blood pressure).
Run by a consortium of charities including Concern Worldwide and Helen Keller International, it will see its funding reduced from £35m to £1m by 2027, before closing.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) had signalled that some countries would stop receiving aid altogether, but few details have come out so far. However, Pete Baker, deputy director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development think tank has told The Independent that grants to countries were being cut “quite quietly behind the scenes”.
“You’d hope that they’d be willing to be more transparent around some of these cuts given that lives are at stake,” he said.
With a much smaller aid budget, the FCDO is prioritising spending on big international funds like the global vaccine alliance Gavi and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. These funds have still received cuts, but at a smaller scale than the overall 40 per cent being sliced from the aid budget.
The government has also pledged to maintain its contribution to the humanitarian responses in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. After spending on these areas, there is little money leftover to send directly to other countries in need.
Another part of the Sierra Leone grant delivered by Unicef, which included buying in essential medicines for pregnancy and birth, will end in March – raising questions about how the government in Sierra Leone will take on the sudden expense.
Unicef was also providing special care baby units for sick or premature newborns.
Unicef spokesperson for Sierra Leone, Suzanne Wooster, said: “Reductions in funding for newborn and child health risk disrupting essential services at a critical time. Unicef continues to work closely with the government of Sierra Leone and partners to mitigate impacts and safeguard gains made for children and newborns.”
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“We understand there’s some trade-offs there,” Mr Baker, of the Center for Global Development, said. “But this is one of the poorest countries in the world.
“It’s got really terrible maternal mortality and child mortality rates”.
The FCDO was expected to publish further details of where aid cuts will fall over the next three years in the autumn, but this has been delayed – likely into next year, The Independent understands.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “The UK is committed to defending and promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights, and we will continue to work with international partners in support of women and girls.” But, they added, the department has been, “clear we must modernise our approach to development reflect the changing global context”.
The UK had invested more than £187.9m into Sierra Leone’s health system over the last decade, they added.
Mr Baker said that the UK had a “long history of both leadership in global health and reasonably good transparency around some of its decision-making,” which it would be a “shame to lose”.
Sierra Leone had been, “a very high priority for UK aid and it’s getting some very severe cuts,” he added. “I think that would be helpful for the public to understand”.
