Britain admits its mistakes contributed to Yemen famine

International development minister pledges errors of previous government not to be repeated

A child, weighing only 4kg, at Al Khudash camp for displaced people in northern Yemen. Britain said cutting aid contributed to the country's famine. AFP

The British government has admitted that mistakes were made that led to food being “taken off the plate” of children in Yemen as the country faced a famine.

International Development Minister Annaliese Dodds has said the previous Conservative government’s near £4 billion ($5 billion) cut in overseas development aid in 2021 had a severe impact on projects, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Ms Dodds told parliament’s international development committee that the reductions had been “damaging”, leading to a “chaotic period”.

“This had a direct impact on that programme and we're determined not to see a return to that chaos, to have a much longer-term approach,” she told MPs.

More than 90,000 children died of starvation in Yemen, in a humanitarian crisis that affected 80 per cent of the country’s 24 million population.

However, then-prime minister Boris Johnson decided to cut Britain’s overseas aid budget in 2021, citing the economic challenges of the Covid pandemic.

US aid cut

The impact of that decision still resonates, Ms Dodds said during questioning on the UK’s contribution to eliminating worldwide hunger by 2030, but she insisted she wanted to see a “restoration of the UK's reputation on international development”.

Anneliese Dodds, International Development Minister, said cuts to Britain’s aid budget harmed projects in Yemen, cutting off children’s access to food during famine. Reuters

However, that could be difficult after Ms Dodds confirmed the UK was urgently examining the impact of US President Donald Trump’s cut in USAid on its global operations tackling hunger.

The British government was assessing the “implications of the US funding pause” across development sectors but there was “still a lot that is unclear” on precisely what would be frozen.

Ms Dodds' department was engaging with the US government and “looking for opportunities to influence, based on our shared objectives in the US”.

She did not deny that some UK projects could be affected by Mr Trump's cuts.

Vaccine threat

Sarah Champion, the committee chairwoman, told The National after the session that her biggest concern was the threat to funding of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, that helps finance vaccinations around the world, particularly for children.

“It vaccinates children and stops very many from dying,” Ms Champion said. “It is a real concern that funding for Gavi might be cut.”

While Ms Dodds had admitted Britain was “one of the biggest funders of Gavi”, she could “not pretend that the spending review doesn't exist”.

Ms Champion suggested she fight “tooth and nail” for the funding to remain, as it was “exceptionally good value for money”.

“The spending review will be looking at whether there will be new money, continuing money, or reduced money, across the whole gamut of different options,” Ms Dodds said earlier.

She also lamented how it was “really worrying to see quite how far off” the global community was from its sustainable development goals with 750 million people worldwide going hungry.

“That's one in five people living in Africa at the moment, so we're clearly far off,” she said.