A flagship health project in Africa, which UK ministers said would play a vital role in protecting Britain from future pandemic threats, is being canceled due to aid cuts, The Guardian can reveal.
The Global Health Workforce Program (GHWP), which supported the development and training of healthcare staff in six African countries, will close at the end of the month, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.
“That is a genuinely historic decision, and the UK now risks giving ground on global health that we will struggle to recover,” said Ben Simms, chief executive of Global Health Partnerships, which led the programme.
Since its launch, the GHWP has been highlighted by ministers and officials as an effort to boost global pandemic preparedness by strengthening national health systems, and a way to meet the UK’s moral obligations to invest in countries from which it recruits large numbers of NHS and social care staff.
Similar programs have been run since 2008. The current plan included projects in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi and Somaliland. His current three-year contract was due to end this month, but was expected to be renewed, as in previous iterations.
Renewing funding in 2023, under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, then Health Minister Will Quince said: “This funding aims to make a real difference in strengthening the performance of health systems in each of the participating countries, which will have a knock-on effect in boosting global pandemic preparedness and reducing health inequalities. The pandemic showed us that patients in the UK are not safe unless the world as a whole is resilient to threats to the health”.
In one project, the Power for the People Africa Trust receives funding through the program to train staff to tackle gender-based violence and reduce teenage pregnancies and HIV infections in Homa Bay County in Kenya.
Caren Okombo, from the trust, said progress would be reversed if funding was stopped, adding: “New HIV infections today in Homa Bay – at some point these infections would cross borders. They would reach the (Britain’s) population as well. So stopping them where they start is something that should be important for a country like Britain.”
However, the Labor government announced last year that it would reduce foreign aid funding from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP to boost military spending. This followed an earlier cut under Boris Johnson of 0.7%.
The GHWP cut was revealed in a written response to a parliamentary question asked by former Development Minister Sir Andrew Mitchell.
FCDO Minister Chris Elmore said the GHWP would close at the end of March.
He said: “The UK should be proud of the progress made in international development this century. But the world has changed, and so must we. With less money, we must make decisions and focus on greater impact.”
Elmore said efforts were being made “to ensure the sustainability of the projects beyond the duration of the programme” and that the government “remains committed to international development and will continue to support countries to build resilient and sustainable health systems”.
A review by the Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) published this week found that the system for allocating official development assistance budgets in recent years “was not always based on shared strategic priorities or evidence of cost-effectiveness”.
In a statement, Global Health Partnerships said: “We understand the fiscal pressures the government faces, but we are clear that cutting investment in health workforce development in low- and middle-income countries has real human consequences and ultimately costs more in the long term.”
Associations could not survive on goodwill alone, they added. “They require sustained investment and institutional commitment and once that thread is cut, it is very difficult to pick it up again.”
The FCDO has been contacted for comment.
