International Development Outcomes for Women and Girls
House of Lords · Grand Committee · 9 Jul 2026 · 21 speeches · Official Report
Question for Short Debate
Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of cuts to Official Development Assistance on international development outcomes for women and girls.
My Lords, I am pleased to bring forward this debate and I thank all noble Lords who will speak. Although speaking time is unfortunately short, I hope that today’s interest leads to further opportunities to examine the impact of cuts to official development assistance. I declare my interests, as set out on the register, of support from the Coalition for Global Prosperity, and my position as chair of Plan International UK. Since the Government announced ODA cuts, many in this House have challenged the logic: defence and development are not competing priorities but mutually reinforcing. This is a political choice, with devastating consequences, which undermines the UK’s ambitions and commitments. The cuts are not felt on paper or in government strategy documents; they are felt in the daily lives of millions among the most fragile communities globally, especially women and girls, who disproportionately bear the consequences. Despite progress, and thanks in no small part to the work of UK development, the scale of the challenge globally remains staggering: 840 million women have been victims of physical or sexual violence; every two minutes, a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth complications; and 133 million girls are not in school. Crises, be they conflict, climate or health, hit women and girls hardest. Violence increases, including sexual violence as a weapon of war, trafficking and early and forced marriage. In Sudan alone, 17.1 million women and girls now need...
My Lords, I thank my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for arranging this debate today. I also thank Concern Worldwide, Planned Parenthood, CAFOD, Action Aid and many other organisations which were kind enough to get in touch with me, as with others, about this debate. The scale of the reduction in official development assistance that we debate here is significant and will drop to the lowest share since 1999. Most of our overseas gender focus will be affected if sitting within our bilateral programmes, which are being reduced significantly by 37%. The Government’s own equalities impact assessment recognises that this will fall disproportionately on programmes supporting equality for women and girls. I make no apology for talking about women and girls; they are the future of the world, not just here but everywhere. Regarding women, peace and security, an area which I have worked on for many years and will continue to do so as an adviser to the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, I welcome the Government’s decision to protect central funding for the WPS agenda, and for preventing sexual violence in conflict, at 2025-26 levels. However, I note that a planned increase to the women, peace and security programme has itself been cut by 25%, at a time when the Commons International Development Committee has found that: “The Government’s commitment to … the WPS National Action Plan … appears to be waning”. Producing a budget at last year’s level, while welcome in...
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing this important debate. During my years as International Development Minister and as the Government’s champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas, people often asked me what I would remember the most. It is not meetings or briefing papers but faces. One face that has never left me still comes back to me whenever we have debates like this. I was visiting a Marie Stopes outreach clinic in Uganda for women who had suffered sexual and domestic violence that we were supporting. It provided family planning and reproductive healthcare, but it was also a place of refuge. Since all the officials and dignitaries who surrounded me were men, I asked them to leave so that I could sit in a circle with the women alone. One woman arrived late carrying her baby. I say “carrying”, but both her arms had been cut off by her husband with a machete, one below the elbow, one above, and she cradled her child with what remained. For that woman, British development assistance was not an abstract policy; it was the difference between hope and despair-the difference between finding help and finding none. That visit reinforced what I came to believe as a Minister: that women and girls are not a peripheral part of development but its foundation. I learned that, when women and girls thrive, whole communities thrive. Educate a girl and she is more likely to earn, to marry later, to have healthier children and to lift her...
My Lords, not for the first time the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, deserves our gratitude for concentrating our minds on victims and survivors of international crimes, especially on women and girls in need of access to life-sustaining support. In my three minutes, I will focus on Sudan and Nigeria. Sudan is facing a second genocide in two decades. This includes a war on women, which I referred to on Tuesday during Question Time and will do so again on Friday next week in my debate on the Genocide Determination Bill. Targeted, unspeakable violence, systemic use of rape as a weapon of war, extreme famine and catastrophic displacement mean that millions of Sudanese women and girls are plunged into peril. As the noble Baroness told us, 17 million women and girls in Sudan are now in need of assistance. A truly shocking UN report on CRSV in Sudan reports that women whom it interviewed in West Darfur were being asked, before being raped, which tribe they belonged to. One replied, “Masalit”. The perpetrators said they would kill her. Another, before being subjected to gang rape, was told: “‘If you are Masalit, we will slaughter you today’ … Others were told, ‘You will be our wives’, ‘You slave’, ‘You are our women,’ and ‘This year, all of you Masalit girls deliver our children’”. If these women somehow survive, they will need sustained help but also justice, which has been absent since the first genocide in Darfur some 20 years ago. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, whole communities have been...
Baroness Chapman of Darlington
My Lords, I am sorry-I know this is unconventional-but that is factually incorrect. That did not happen, and I want to make that clear to the Committee at this point.
I am grateful to the Minister for her intervention, but what I said is based on information provided to me by officials who work in her department. It is said that the “FCDO opted to take the fourth - and least ambitious - option … FCDO stakeholders … recognised the value of supporting locally led protection of civilians interventions, but stated that an already overstretched country team did not have the capacity to take on a complex new programming area. This has constrained the UK’s ability to support stronger protection results”, inevitably. Clearly, we owe it to girls like Leah and the women and girls of Sudan to be more ambitious. Given the Minister’s intervention just now, I hope that it will be possible to sit down with her and talk through those previous ambitions, which were rejected, and see what can be done for others in the future.
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing this debate. I will focus on violence against women and girls. As we have heard, the fundamental concern here is whether the reduction in UK ODA can be achieved without significant consequences for women and girls. The Government’s own equality impact assessment acknowledges that the reduction in ODA “will inevitably have negative impacts for many programme beneficiaries”. I state the obvious here that women and girls constitute at least 50% of the world’s population. When we talk about these issues, I often feel as though we are talking about something that affects a minority group, which would still not be acceptable, but sometimes we need to state the obvious. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to maintain central spending on preventing violence against women and girls, the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and women, peace and security programmes. However, UN Women reports that global aid cuts totalling an estimated $78 billion are severely impacting efforts to end violence against women and girls, with around one-third of organisations suspending programmes and over 40% reducing vital services such as shelters, legal aid and psychological support. This is tragic. From a faith perspective, ending gender-based violence is a priority across the Anglican Communion, and many churches and communities are being trained to respond to abuse, support survivors and change harmful...
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for securing this debate and for her steadfast commitment to women and girls affected by conflict. Conscious of the time limit, I will focus on one issue: conflict-related sexual violence. For survivors, the reduction in official development assistance is not merely an accounting exercise; it determines whether a woman who has been raped receives life-saving medical treatment, protection and a chance of justice. The evidence is clear: we are going backwards. Physicians for Human Rights has documented the consequences of abrupt reductions in international assistance. Across Ethiopia, DRC, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, clinicians report shortages of post-exposure prophylaxis following rape, interruptions to post-rape care, the closure of one-stop centres and the collapse of referral pathways. Survivors are being denied emergency treatment when they need it most. These are not marginal reductions; they are dismantling the system on which survivors depend, leaving women who have been raped searching in vain for life-saving medicines. As a result, they are becoming victims twice over-first at the hands of those who committed these crimes and then through the withdrawal of the assistance on which their recovery entirely depends. Political leadership matters too. When my noble friend Lord Hague founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, he understood that this was not only a humanitarian issue but a strategic one. I...
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, on securing this important debate and for ensuring that the well-being of vulnerable women and girls remains firmly on our agenda. In my role as a former vice-chair and trustee of the British Red Cross, I was closely involved in programmes supporting mothers and babies affected by conflict. I begin with the story of Marie, shared in evidence to the International Development Committee on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Marie, a mother of four and heavily pregnant, was displaced by conflict and separated from her husband. She was told she needed a caesarean section but could not afford the $70 fee at her local clinic. Unable even to feed her family, she walked for days to reach a hospital where the operation would be free, risking both childbirth and armed violence along the way. Marie’s story is not an isolated tragedy; it is what happens when maternal and reproductive healthcare is out of reach. I recognise the difficult fiscal choices facing the Government. I welcome their commitment to return to spending 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance when fiscal conditions allow, and their ambition for 90% of bilateral aid programmes to advance gender equality by 2030. The Government deserve credit for holding to that under pressure, yet the need has never been greater. Between 2019 and 2022, women’s rights stagnated or declined in 40% of countries, affecting around 1...
My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests: I co-chair and run the APPG on Women, Peace and Security, I am on the steering board of the PSVI, I run the Afghan Women’s Support Forum and I am an honorary colonel in CIMIC. I too thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for introducing this important debate today. As we have heard, in the poorest countries women are always the poorest of the poor. The Red Cross reports over 130 active conflicts in the world today, with women disproportionately affected. Estimates by the WHO indicate that one in three women globally have been subjected to physical or sexual violence. The international development budget is being cut to less than half of the pre-Covid amount-a political choice-causing much of Britain’s soft power to be abandoned by pitching defence against development. France, Germany and the USA, who, together with the UK, presented two-thirds of global aid spending, are also slashing development spend. Who will fill the gap? Perhaps it will be nations which do not share our idea of democracy. The UN now estimates that 239 million people will need humanitarian support in 2026. Women and girls in conflict zones, refugee camps and disaster-hit regions are, as ever, among the most exposed when the safety net thins. The FCDO’s own equalities impact assessment found that reductions in bilateral aid will have a negative impact on equalities-in short, the Government already admit that the cuts will hurt women and girls. The Foreign Secretary’s...
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for initiating this important debate today. I declare my interest as founder, chairman and trustee of the Loomba Foundation and vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the United Nations Global Goals. For nearly three decades, the Loomba Foundation has worked to improve the lives of widows and their children, especially girls, through education, skills training, economic empowerment and international advocacy. There are almost 300 million widows worldwide, which is confirmed by UN Women. Many millions live in extreme poverty and face discrimination, dispossession and harmful traditional practices simply because they have lost their husbands. The consequences extend far beyond the widows themselves, disproportionately affecting their children, especially girls, through lost education, reduced opportunity and entrenched poverty. If we are serious about achieving the sustainable development goals on ending poverty and hunger, ensuring good health, quality education, gender equality, decent work, reduced inequalities and peace and justice, we cannot ignore the plight of widows. I warmly acknowledge the long-standing support that successive UK Governments have given to the Loomba Foundation, including during the successful campaign that led to the United Nations unanimously adopting 23 June as International Widows Day. However, there is no doubt that reductions in overseas development aid have made the task...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for this debate and join her in expressing my concern about the impact that reductions in the UK’s ODA will have on women and girls around the world. When aid budgets are reduced, the consequences are not felt equally. Women and girls are almost always the first to lose access to education, healthcare, sexual and reproductive health services, protection from violence and economic opportunities. These are not abstract budget lines; they are the foundations of dignity, security and opportunity. For decades, the UK has been recognised as a global leader in championing girls’ education, maternal health, ending gender-based violence and supporting women’s rights organisations. That leadership has saved lives, expanded opportunity and strengthened our standing as a trusted international partner. We should be proud of that record. Yet reductions in ODA invariably force difficult choices. Programmes supporting survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, preventing child marriage, improving maternal healthcare and enabling girls to stay in school are often among those scaled back or closed altogether. Support matters not only because it is the right thing to do, but because investing in women and girls is one of the smartest investments any country can make. When girls complete their education, child marriage declines, maternal and infant mortality falls, household incomes rise and communities become more resilient. When women...
My Lords, I declare that I am the co-chair of the APPG on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. I, too, thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for securing this important and timely debate. It has truly been a sobering debate with so much expertise around this table. Wars waged by men are often a death sentence for women and girls. Yet despite carrying much of the burden during war, women remain excluded from peace negotiations and political decision-making. The UN reports that women make up only 7% of negotiators and 14% of mediators in formal peace processes. The dial has hardly moved on those statistics in years. As we have heard, more than 4.3 million women and girls in Sudan are now displaced. The suffering is horrifying. We have heard that in Congo, Afghanistan, Gaza and other places, suffering is equally off the scale. The reduction in FCDO health spending in 2025-26, including cuts to the women’s integrated sexual health programme, has been described as a cruel proposal at a time of acute crisis for women and girls. For the UNFPA programmes, although core funding has been welcome, 2025 funding cuts from multiple donors have severely disrupted sexual and reproductive health. Even with existing funding, 1,100 health facilities and mobile clinics were forced to close. In many places, the maternal health clinic may still stand, but the midwife is gone. There is no emergency obstetric equipment, no post-rape kits and no contraceptives left on the...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for bringing this debate forward. Her long-standing commitment to international development is respected across the House, and I pay tribute to her for her continued work. Before I address the issue of overseas development assistance, I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I reflect on the increasingly unstable world in which we live. We know that instability and conflict have unique effects on women and girls. Last month, I asked the Minister about the appalling sexual violence against women in Sudan; this was highlighted by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. We have seen cases of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war in Ukraine and against Israeli hostages, as well as on 7 October 2023. We have a powerful role to play as a voice against atrocities and war crimes, as well as in holding perpetrators to account. Can the Minister expand on the Government’s broader approach to conflict in the world today, the effect that it is having on women and girls-especially in respect of sexual violence-and how we are responding to it? I turn to the overseas development assistance budget. As has been mentioned by most noble Lords, in the face of growing fiscal and defence challenges, our spending has reduced significantly as a percentage of gross national income. Given the challenges that we face today, the Official Opposition understand and support that. I appreciate that there are a range of views on funding in this...
Baroness Chapman of Darlington
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing us together to have this discussion. It is incredibly important that we do so, and it speaks to the level of interest and concern across our House that so many noble Lords have chosen to come and take part in this Committee this afternoon. I know personally how committed the noble Baroness is to improving the lives of women and girls around the world. This is not a new thing for her; she has spent many years doing this, and I value and respect her work. I know how much everybody here cares about this issue. I have to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I understand where the noble Lord read what he spoke about; it was recently raised with me, too, at the International Development Committee. I have responded formally in writing to the committee specifically on the issues raised by the noble Lord. I can categorically assure him that no such proposal ever came to any Minister and that the least effective options were not selected. That did not happen. I am very happy to meet the noble Lord and whoever he wishes to bring along to discuss these matters in as much detail as he would like, because I know that his aim is true and that what he wants is the same as what I want, which is to see a resolution to this heinous conflict.
I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity at all-she knows that. I did not say that proposals had been sent to her. I said there had been four sets of proposals and stakeholders had been involved in them. What I said was that a particular, most ambitious proposal was put to one side and the least ambitious proposal was the one that was adopted. Which Ministers agreed to see those proposals in the first place, I do not know, but as she said, this was said at a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and it has been said in the national media. This was not something I pulled out of thin air. I am grateful to her as it would be good to have sight of the letter she has written. She knows that before the Genocide Determination Bill is considered next Friday, a request was made by her noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and me to see the Foreign Secretary. I hope the Minister will relay that request again.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington
I would be very happy to do that. I know that the noble Lord does not pull these things out of thin air; I am familiar with where this has come from. I have said what I have said, we can get into it in more depth, and I would be very happy to do that. The Government have put the safety and rights of women and girls at the heart of the UK’s development and international work more generally. We have done this because, as many noble Lords have said, advancing gender equality is the right thing to do, but it is also the best way to alleviate poverty, build economies and support women leaders, and countries need women leaders in order to thrive. I think everybody here understands and agrees with that. Women strengthen democracies, advance peace and security, and drive prosperity. That is why the Foreign Secretary made women and girls a stand-alone priority for the FCDO. It is also why I am a SheDecides champion, supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights, and women’s rights to choose. We now have the framework in place to turn our ambitions into reality. I would like more money for this agenda, and I think that contributions that highlight the ODA budget cuts are absolutely legitimate and fair. What is less fair, I think, is any suggestion that we have somehow not understood the impact that this could have, that we have not been open and transparent about the decisions that we have made, or that we have not consciously and deliberately amended those choices in order to,...
Sitting suspended.