UK on Course to Miss Aid Spending Target by Estimated £400m
The UK is on course to miss its target for spending on international aid by an estimated £400m by the end of 2027, the Guardian reported on 26 October 2026.
The target is set as a share of gross national income (GNI), the total value of what the country produces and earns in a year. It is 0.3%. Official development assistance, or ODA, is the government spending that counts as aid to poorer countries. The 0.3% figure is well below the 0.7% that Labour promised in its election manifesto, the party's written pledges to voters. Prime Minister Keir Starmer downgraded the aid target to boost defence spending, and in February 2025 he announced that ODA would fall from 0.5% to 0.3% of GNI in 2027.
The Center for Global Development (CGD), a research organisation, has examined the numbers. Its central forecast, based on a Treasury comparison of independent experts' views, implies UK aid would come in £410m below what was anticipated, at only 0.29% of national income. CGD said it was "very plausible" that the shortfall would reach £580m, bringing aid to 0.28% of national income. Even the most conservative forecast it considered implies a shortfall of £250m.
CGD attributed the gap to two factors: inflation higher than expected, which pushed national income above the forecast made at the spending review, and a 2025 policy change affecting the budget of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the department that manages most of the UK's aid. CGD also said the 0.3% target for 2027 would be a 25-year low.
The downward path is already visible in the figures. ODA fell to 0.44% of GNI in 2025, down from 0.5% in 2024, a drop of £987m. Projections from the House of Commons Library put UK aid at 0.48% of GNI in 2025/26, 0.37% in 2026/27 and 0.30% in 2027/28. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which reviews UK aid, said ODA in 2026-27 was set to fall by around £3.1 billion, or 24%.
FCDO figures released in September 2026 showed a 6.7% decrease in funding to least-developed and low-income countries, cuts amounting to £118m.
The government has described the target as "equivalent to 0.3% of gross national income," a phrase used since the 2025 Spending Review, the process in which the government sets departmental budgets for several years.
