Charity calls on UK Government to rethink foreign aid cut

Christian Aid Ireland is calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, to do a U-turn and not cut foreign Aid.

Mr Sunak announced as part of his spending review last week that foreign aid is to be cut from 0.7 % to 0.5%.

Rosamond Bennett is the Chief Executive of the charity and has called on the UK Government to keep its foreign aid promise.

She said: “The impact of a cut in aid budget has sever repercussions for the poorest and the most vulnerable.

“For them it’s about pushing them back into extreme poverty.”

“Aid is the one way in which they can start too, they have a means to survive.

“So, at a time when they need that support the most, they are not going to get it.

“They are going to really struggle to get food, they’re going to struggle with malnutrition, they’re going to struggle to get health care and to get vaccinations and women and children will really bare the brunt of this.”

Ms Bennett said she has seen first-hand how foreign aid can benefit those who need it the most.

During her visit to in Akola village in South Sudan in October 2019 she met with the local people.

During her visit she met Asunta Aduong who was widowed during the conflict in South Sudan and displaced from her home.

She is the sole carer for her 7 children.

They were on the verge of starvation only a year before the group visited, eating leaves they had foraged from the forest.

However, with the help of UK Aid, she is now growing her own food - enough to feed her family and to sell the surplus for a cash income.

She added: “These are the people who could be impacted by the cuts to the UK aid budget.

“To go and break the manifesto, which the UK was the first country to legislate for the 0.7 and then to go back and make that cut is just ethically wrong.

“It is a way to help them to get food security food access to health care and access to education and as we know the global pandemic has really pushed about, we think over a hundred million people into extreme poverty.”

The organisation has been operating for over 70 years and works in 37 countries across the world.

The Christian groups ethos is to try and end poverty worldwide.

Ms Bennett said that the money that people in foreign countries receive can often be a matter of life and death.

She added: “People that I first met said to me we will never see you again, because unless we get support now, we won’t live to see you next time.

“Now, I know for a fact having met those people I know the impact that money has made."