GADN response to Minister Chapman’s statement on aid cuts and gender equality
By Womankind Worldwide
London, 22 Thursday 2025- The Gender and Development Network (GADN) has expressed our deep concern about the major aid cuts announced in February, and warned that once again, women and girls would be disproportionately impacted. Time and again, we have seen how crises have a gendered impact, and we know that women and girls will once again bear a disproportionate burden of the costs of these cuts. This fear becomes all the more pressing given the rapid rise in far-right governments and movements that have made misogyny, and attacks on gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights, a central part of their platforms.
At the time, we wrote to the Foreign Secretary saying: ”Based on our extensive collective experience, we know these cuts will disproportionately impact on gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights. We therefore urge you to protect spending in this vital area. Moreover, a cut in aid spending adds further imperative for the UK to champion the rights of women and girls on the international stage.”
We are therefore dismayed by the suggestion that spending on gender equality will be disproportionately hit. Appearing before the International Development Parliamentary Select Committee on May 13th, Baroness Chapman said of the aid cuts:
“Inevitably, this means that in some areas and countries, there’ll be less to spend, and I think there’s no point being anything other than completely open about this, and I think that’s likely to be on education and gender. But in those areas, we can’t turn away from them. We’ve got to make even more of our technical expertise in the FCDO and across the UK more widely, and our diplomatic influence to lead. We also need to use our voice at the big multilateral funds to leverage more money, reform the system and make sure that they continue to deliver.”
In response to questions, Baroness Chapman added:
“I think we’re going to have to find a better, smarter way of working to make sure that we don’t walk away from this agenda” and that there was a need to: “integrate and mainstream our work”.
This confirms what had already been rumoured, that standalone programmes, such as those on gender-based violence support for women’s rights organisations, may be disproportionately cut when already only 10 per cent of all UK aid has gender equality as its ‘principal’ objective.
Why gender equality spending must be protected from cuts
Past ODA cuts have already had a disproportionate and devastating impact on gender equality and women’s rights. The disproportionate impact arises both as a result of cuts in programmes targeting women and girls and due to the greater gendered impacts of broader cuts in areas such as public services and social protection. Recent evidence confirms that while the ODA budget was cut by a third between 2021 and 2022, spending that includes a focus on gender equality nearly halved between 2019 and 2022, falling from £6.3 to £3.4 billion.
Funding for gender equality is vital. Gender inequality remains one of the most pervasive forms of injustice globally, with women more likely to live in poverty. Achieving gender equality and the full realisation of women’s and girls’ rights is not only a moral imperative but also a critical prerequisite for addressing development challenges, reducing poverty and securing progress across the Sustainable Development Goals.
At the same time, misogyny is a central plank of the far-right agenda that is sweeping across the world, further increasing the need for the UK to defend women’s and girls’ rights. Gender mainstreaming is vital, but we know from past experience that it works best in conjunction with, not as an alternative to, funding for standalone gender equality programming. Moreover, effective mainstreaming is not a cheap option. It requires dedicated resources and capacity alongside clear leadership, prioritisation and accountability.
ODA that tackles gender inequality is a highly effective use of scarce ODA resources. In a time of cuts, improving effectiveness becomes all the more important and protecting targeted ODA is vital. The FCDO has received praise for its innovative initiatives, such as funding for women’s rights organisations and programmes on violence against women and girls. Other successes include the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme, which has transformed access to sexual and reproductive health and rights services for the poorest women and girls across 27 countries in Africa and Asia. Reaching over 6 million women and girls since 2018, it has averted nearly 37,000 maternal deaths, prevented 3.85 million unsafe abortions, and helped 300,000 girls and young women stay in school.
The Supporting Adolescent Girls’ Education (SAGE) programme in Zimbabwe is another successful example, which has brought gender-transformative change to 13,200 highly marginalised, out-of-school adolescent girls, many of whom were already married or mothers. Mainstreaming the lessons learnt from gender equality programming will also be an important factor in improving the overall effectiveness of all aid.
The experience and lessons learnt through aid programming are crucial to the UK’s wider contribution on gender equality internationally. Programmes like ‘What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls’ have a strong international reputation and are a key element of the sharing of technical expertise that Minister Chapman has promised as the UK’s new contribution in the face of aid cuts.
Having a reputation for, and learning the lessons of, programming experience is also essential if the UK is to be taken seriously when using its soft power in multilateral spaces. With the G7 Summit on the horizon, this will be a crucial opportunity for the government to demonstrate their continuing commitment to gender equality.
Why action is urgent
Decisions on how cuts should be allocated are happening now, with key allocations made by June 11th. Ultimately, Foreign Secretary Lammy will have the final decision, but we understand that senior civil servants Melinda Bohannon and Nick Dyer will be very influential.GADN and our members will continue to put pressure on the government to protect and promote the rights of women and girls.
Further reactions from our members to Baroness Chapman’s May 13th announcement can be found at:
About The Gender and Development Network (GADN)
GADN brings together expert NGOs, consultants, academics and individuals committed to working on gender, development and women’s rights issues. Our vision is of a world where social justice and gender equality prevail and where all women and girls are able to realise their rights free from discrimination. Our goal is to ensure that international development policy and practice promotes gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights.
For more information: erika.yap@gadnetwork.org
*This statement has been copied from GADN in solidarity
