Both the US and UK Governments have announced swingeing cuts to overseas development funding.

 A UK-based NGO has warned it is deeply concerned about the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children as cuts in foreign aid stop vital work in dozens of countries when children’s needs have never been greater. 

More than 40 countries have been impacted across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East by an abrupt halt to US government foreign aid that is threatening health, nutrition and education programmes for millions of children. 

The UK followed suit last week, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announcing his Labour Government would also cut international aid by 40%. 

This is also expected to lead to the loss of thousands of aid worker jobs.  

Save the Children say between eight and 12million people supported by their work will be impacted, with 17m items of aid currently stranded in warehouses, on trucks and with suppliers during the funding freeze. 

Five Save the Children country offices are now set to close in Sri Lanka, Poland, Brazil, Georgia and Liberia, with the Democratic Republic of Congo forced to close 92 health clinics providing healthcare to over 200,000 people. 

Malnutrition treatment in Sudan and Syria are also at risk. 

Despite this Save the Children has vowed to stay resilient and determined to do whatever it takes to give children a better future. 

The charity works in about 115 countries, has proposed a series of cost cutting measures and is also exploring other sources of funding to continue its life-saving work. 

At present, cuts will impact upwards of 2,300 country office staff, with contracts with affected partner organisations will be terminated immediately. It also expects to propose significant reductions to global teams. 

Inger Ashing, CEO at Save the Children International, said: “For more than 100 years Save the Children has worked tirelessly to protect the world’s most vulnerable children from conflict, hunger, and disease and to provide them with a future. In that time foreign aid has always been a beacon of hope for children. 

“But today, as humanitarian needs reach record levels, cuts in funding are putting children’s lives and futures at risk. It is heart-breaking that we are having to close some of these vital programmes. The world has the resources to protect and support children but they are being left behind, their rights ignored and their futures jeopardised. This is an outright failure of responsibility of those in power and a moral failure of us all. 

“Every child deserves a future. We cannot let children die on our watch.  Now is the time for leaders to step up, not step back. We all have a moral and strategic imperative to invest in children and acknowledge their rights for a safer and more stable world.” 

The cut in US foreign assistance will have an immediate impact on children whose needs have never been greater, due to a combination of conflict, climate change and widening inequality. Sofia, a mother of three in rural Mozambique, has been left unable to feed her children after the suspension of a food aid project which distributed nutritional supplements, with the food they need locked up in warehouses. 

“It felt like a cruel joke. Food is there but we cannot touch it,” she said. 

In another example, community health worker Eduardo Chicala, also from Mozambique, said the suspension of mobile health teams to visit remote villages was hitting hard, with people having to walk for up to 40 kms to get help and concerns that diseases will not be treated. 

“We worry that malnourished children will die in far-flung places with no one to help them,” he said. 

In Somalia the end of cash assistance in some communities is driving families back into hunger. 

Amina, a mother of nine, said receiving £71 ($90) a month for food and education had changed her family’s life. 

“Without this support, we cannot afford to pay for our children's education, and putting food on the table has become difficult once again. My husband tries his best—he takes care of our goats and fetches water—but finding a job here is almost impossible. The drought has made things worse, and our livestock is decreasing,” she said. 

Psychosocial support for children and education is also severely impacted. A project providing counselling and recreational activities for children fleeing into South Sudan to escape the war in Sudan has closed. 

Many of these children are suffering from trauma due to displacement and seeing things no child should experience.