Keir Starmer’s decision this week to slash Britain’s overseas aid budget and divert to defence spending will take UK aid to developing countries to its lowest level in a generation. It will almost halve the already diminished aid pot, from 0.58% of national income to 0.3%. In 2023, the total aid spend was £15.34bn, almost a third of which was spent on supporting and housing refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.
How has the UK’s overseas aid budget changed over time?
UK overseas aid has historically risen during Labour governments, most noticeably after Tony Blair came to power in 1997 with a pledge to meet the UN’s target of 0.7% of gross national income.
The UN general assembly set the target in 1970 for developed countries to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance (ODA), to promote the economic development and welfare of poorer nations.
The Blair administration, with Gordon Brown as chancellor, set out to reverse a fall in aid spend, from 0.51 in 1979 to 0.27% in 1996, over 18 years of Tory government. Blair set up the Department for International Development (DfID), to focus on reducing poverty, making aid more effective, improving the lives of women and girls and fighting climate change.
Blair committed to achieve 0.7% by 2013. The target was enshrined in law in 2015 and was met every year from 2013 to 2020. Other EU countries committed to the 0.7% target by 2015.
In 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, then prime minister Boris Johnson said the economic impacts at home would result in a temporary reduction in ODA spend to 0.5% of GNI. The previous year, Johnson had controversially merged DfID with the Foreign Office.
The Starmer government had committed to restoring the 0.7% spend as soon as fiscal circumstances allowed.
Which countries receive the most aid?
In 2023, official figures show the top three country recipients of bilateral aid were Ukraine (£250m), Ethiopia (£164m) and Afghanistan (£115m). Keir Starmer has said the UK will continue to support Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, as well as contribute to climate finance and global health.
Regionally, the continent of Africa is the largest regional recipient of UK aid, at £1,229m.
How much does the UK spend on overseas aid annually?
The UK’s ODA spend was £15.34bn in 2023. Based on the most recent forecasts for GNI, reducing aid spend to 0.3% in 2027 would take the budget to £9.2bn.
Almost a third, 28% or £4.3bn, of aid went on support for refugees or asylum seekers in the UK or other donor countries in 2023, a dramatic rise from the 3.2%, or £400m, in 2020.
Britain’s reported costs for each refugee or asylum seeker is many times that of other major European countries, due in part to a shortage of UK accommodation, leading to the Home Office housing people in hotels.
Where does UK aid go?
Humanitarian aid (15.3%) and health (13.3%) were the two largest sectors for bilateral aid in 2023, at £878m and £764m.
Before the pandemic, humanitarian spending was about 15% to 16% of bilateral aid, but was reduced by half in 2021 after the pandemic, to 10.3%, from £1.3bn to £743m.
In 2022 and 2023, the UK provided £592m to humanitarian crises in Ukraine, after the Russian invasion, and £467m to Afghanistan, after the Taliban takeover in 2021. It announced an increase in support for victims of the conflict in Sudan in 2025, to £226.5m.
