Updated 25.07.25

Send My Friend to School is disappointed by the substantial cuts to UK ODA for global education confirmed in the FCDO Annual Report and Accounts for 2024-25.

The report reveals plans for UK funding support for girls’ education to fall by 51%* in 2025/26, while the overall ODA budget decreases by 6%. Though much of this drop is reflective of the delivery of a large portion of the UK’s commitment to the Global Partnership for Education in 2024/25, the cuts to several country programmes will have devastating, long-lasting consequences for hundreds of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable children, as acknowledged in the FCDO’s own Equality and Impact Assessment.

Defunding education is short-sighted. It also undermines the Government’s stated development priorities of economic growth, health, climate, and peace and security, and is misaligned with its domestic mission to break down barriers to opportunity.

We continue to call on the UK to urgently reconsider its deprioritisation of global education. We urge the UK to honour its commitment to multilateral funds by making strong pledges to the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait in 2026, vital global funds that the UK helped create and has long supported.

Emma Wagner and John McLaverty, co-Chairs of the Send My Friend to School coalition

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*ODA on the Girls Education Department will fall from £378.4 million in 2024-25 to £185.7 million in 2025-26, a fall of 50.9%.