As the world faces growing inequalities, crises and needs, available support for millions of people is beginning to fray. In January 2025, the United States, long the largest contributor to international cooperation, began to dismantle its commitment to global solidarity, creating a dramatic funding gap.
In a troubling parallel, the vast majority of European donors, who have been strong allies of international cooperation and who in 2023 reached a new record of support for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide, are also pulling back from their commitments, pushed by geopolitical pressures and shifting priorities increasingly focused on self-interest, security and defence.
Since the beginning of the year, Countdown 2030 Europe (C2030E) has calculated that 9 European donors (8 countries — Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — plus the European Union) have announced and/or already put in place cuts to their Official Development Assistance (ODA) amounting to €30 billion over the next 4 years.
As past funding cuts show, withdrawing support will not only endanger lives but also severely harm the health and well-being of women, girls and marginalized communities. This unprecedented retreat of global solidarity is happening at a time when need has never been greater, with the world facing the most active conflicts since World War II, the warmest years on record and exacerbated inequalities increasing global instability and fuelling the rise of dangerous populist and extremist rhetorics. In this context, donor governments are turning their backs on the world’s most marginalised communities by slashing life-saving international cooperation budgets.
In a world that is more than ever interconnected, self-interest and common interest go hand in hand. Reducing international cooperation budgets is neither the right choice, nor the strategic, forward-looking thing to do – if we care about building a sustainably healthy, safe, prosperous and more equal global community that includes us all and tackles global challenges together.
Research from the 2017-2021 period shows, for instance, that the reinstatement of the US Global Gag Rule in those years reduced access to contraception in affected countries by 13%, with a 28% decrease in emergency contraception availability, 11% in long-acting methods, and 6% in short-acting methods. This led to an estimated 100,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections. Furthermore, as witnessed in 2021 with the dramatic UK ODA cuts, an estimated 9.5 million fewer women and girls accessed contraception, leading to 4.3 million unintended pregnancies, 1.4 million unsafe abortions, and 8,000 preventable maternal deaths. Finally, the cuts announced by the five top donors (US, UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands) providing about 90% of international funding for HIV are predicted to cause 2.9 million more HIV-related deaths by 2030. On the positive side, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, among the countries where C2030E operates, allocated at least 0,7% of GNI to ODA in 2024.
SOURCE: Countdown 2030 Europe, April 2025.
