The response to the rapidly-spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda has been undermined by foreign aid cuts, including from the UK, the development minister Jenny Chapman has admitted.
During an interview with the BBC World Service while on a trip to Kinshasa, the DRC capital, Baroness Chapman was asked: “The UK government is reducing foreign aid from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) and redirecting those funds to defence and security... but when it comes to an outbreak like this one that has the potential to spread internationally, does that speak to how counterproductive that reduction in foreign aid budgets can be?”
