THE “double whammy” of the UK Government slashing its overseas aid budget in a copycat response to the United States threatens to bring disaster at the world’s biggest refugee camp, a Scottish humanitarian aid expert has warned.
Magnus Wolfe Murray was formerly a humanitarian adviser to the UK Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where one million Rohingya people who have fled persecution in Myanmar/Burma have made their homes.
Wolfe Murray is “hugely disappointed” by the UK’s decision to mimic the huge reductions Donald Trump and Elon Musk have made in the USAID budget. Camp residents including 500,000 children now face having their food rations cut in half from next month.
Wolfe Murray warns the swingeing cuts will also affect healthcare, water and sewerage, increasing preventable deaths including infant mortality.
The removal of aid also risks environmental devastation by threatening the supply of cooking gas, forcing residents to cut down trees. This could force the refugees into hard choices – taking dangerous migration routes, getting involved in drug trafficking or pushing them towards radicalisation.
The UK Government is reducing the proportion of GDP spent on aid from 0.6% to 0.3%. But because the overseas aid budget pays for asylum seekers’ accommodation in the UK, it will spend as little as 0.1% abroad. The Labour Government will instead spend the money on defence.
Wolfe Murray said: “I find it hugely disappointing that Keir Starmer announced this cut shortly after Trump axed USAID. There is a double whammy effect when two of the major donors in disasters cut aid by full or half. They know perfectly well that this will lead to famine, disease, increased conflict, death and significant new waves of migration.”
Wolfe Murray argues there are better options for increasing defence spending. But more importantly the cuts “undermine decades of international solidarity, belief in shared values of mutual peace and security, leadership in humanitarian action”.
“Those ideals are not separate from defence – they are really what we should be defending. Without those, what do we stand for in the world?” he said.
“Aid is very much part of national security. If you reduce the risk of further conflict and migration with your overseas development money, you avert some of the threats that might cause problems later on. It is a bit like spending money on preventing illness rather than treating the symptoms.
“There was an opportunity for the British Government to respond to what the US had done by saying ‘we should show leadership in the international development sector by doing more, not reducing’.”
Wolfe Murray is setting up a charity called Movement in Refuge to help Cox’s Bazar residents and the community that hosts them by organising sports and coaching.
Britain has a long history in the area and can be blamed for exacerbating some of the issues that have led to the current crisis. Burma, now known by some as Myanmar, was once called “the Scottish colony” because there were so many Scots involved in its administration. Cox’s Bazar is named after an officer of the East India Company originally from Aberdeenshire, called Hiram Cox.
The British fought three wars with Burma, seeking control of its teak, oil, rubies and fertile lands. The area became a big exporter of rice. The technique of the British Empire was “divide and rule” and its rule exacerbated ethnic differences and weakened society. During World War Two, Britain was implicated in a famine that killed millions in Bangladesh.
A longer interview with Magnus Wolfe Murray about Cox’s Bazar appears on Jackie Kemp’s Substack newsletter A Letter from Scotland.
