Dear [MP NAME]
CC: Prime Minister Keir Starmer
As your constituent, I am appalled by the decision to slash the UK overseas development budget to 0.3% of GNI.
The budget was already shrunk to 0.5% of GNI, down from the UK’s legal obligation to spend 0.7%, and represented a tiny fraction of our overall budget. Yet it still had a massive positive impact on tens of millions across the globe. Between 2013 and 2020, for instance, the UK reached 50 million women and girls globally with essential nutrition services. These cuts are a political choice and a cruel one, especially in the 21st century, when so much progress has already been made in the fight against global hunger and poverty.
The UK has historically been seen as a global leader on development and humanitarian issues. With USAID – the largest provider of overseas assistance in the world – suspended, the UK should be stepping up and showing this leadership. Instead, it is pulling back, creating the conditions for famine to take hold, disease to fester, and conflict to spread.
Every 11 seconds, a child dies from hunger. 733 million face malnutrition, 2.8 million can’t afford a healthy diet, and deadly conflict is pushing more and more people towards the brink of famine.
This does not make the UK safer. Instead, it makes the whole world more unstable.
As my MP, I ask that you use every opportunity to challenge the short-sighted decision to slash UK ODA, and demand that the budget be restored. Submit parliamentary questions, make interventions, write to David Lammy and Keir Starmer, and speak with your colleagues.
Contact Jack Feinmann ([email protected]), Parliamentary Relations Manager at Action Against Hunger UK, to learn more about specific actions you can take.
Please respond to let me know what you are doing to stand up to these unconscionable cuts.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
