International development committee publishes report on extreme poverty

The international development committee has published report entitled “Extreme poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals”, which argues that the elimination of extreme poverty is vital to security and prosperity across the world.

It comes as the UK Government’s reduces spending on UK aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of the UK’s Gross National Income.

The Chair of the International Development Committee, Sarah Champion MP, said:

“Cutting the Official Development Assistance budget has damaged the UK’s reputation as a development leader. Decades of progress to eliminate extreme poverty around the world – recognised as one of the most successful stories in international development — are at risk”.

The report’s introduction reads: “The UK is historically one of the largest providers of Official Development Assistance (ODA), and it has made a sustained contribution to that reduction in extreme poverty. However, progress on extreme poverty reduction had already slowed, and the combined threats of COVID-19, climate change and conflict threaten to undo decades of progress”.