Foreign Aid Cuts: The real impact on children and our programmes

All children should have a healthy start in life, be safe in school and learning, and live free from violence.  

Despite progress over the past 100 years, today, in every country we work in, children’s rights are under attack. On top of these already challenging times, funding cuts are putting our lifesaving work under threat  – it’s a betrayal of the world’s most vulnerable children.  

It’s leaving critical funding gaps at a time when 1 in 11 children globally need lifesaving assistance. Children who are trying to survive hunger, conflict and natural disasters.  

We have been forced to immediately stop our life-saving work – while children are facing extreme hunger in Sudan. While war and heavy fighting continue to rage in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While families in Gaza and Syria are fighting to survive and rebuild. And when climate change is threatening millions of children’s lives and futures around the globe.  

Impact of the aid cuts in numbers  

Globally, as of 14 March 2025, 176 Save the Children programmes have been impacted by recent cuts in aid. 127 have been fully terminated and the rest have been fully or partially suspended. This will impact approximately 10.3 million people.    

Over 40 countries we operate in have been impacted across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.  

Inger Ashing, Save the Children International CEO, speaks on the huge impact foreign aid cuts have and will have on children globally:  

The cut in foreign assistance globally is a dark and difficult moment for a world already struggling to meet the growing needs of children facing conflict, poverty, hunger and climate disasters. It comes at a time when children’s needs have never been greater. This withdrawal of support will have a direct and deadly impact on some of the world’s most vulnerable children.  Save the Children and many of our peers across the sector are being forced to significantly reduce staff numbers, end contracts with partner organisations, and close down some programmes, with huge impact on children. We are committed to continue our life-saving work. We cannot let children die on our watch.  

Impact of the aid cuts per country

To give a sense of what these aid cuts mean in practice for the children, families and communities we support, here are some examples from the DRC, oPt, Sudan and Syria.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, children are caught up in heavy fighting amid the worst escalation of violence in the country in more than a decade.  

Hospitals are overwhelmed with children and families suffering from gunshot wounds and other injuries. Medicines are running low and diseases like Mpox and Cholera are on the rise. 

Nearly 4.5 million children aged 6 to 59 months are facing or expected to face acute malnutrition, including approximately 1.4 million cases of severe acute malnutrition.  

The recent aid cuts could force us to stop a lifesaving project delivering health, nutrition, protection and water, sanitation and hygiene services that aims to support 1.2 million people in Ituri and North Kivu, some of the worst affected provinces.  

If the gaps in funding aren’t met, we’ll have no choice but to stop testing and treating tens of thousands of children for malnutrition, running lifesaving health clinics that families rely on, or supporting survivors of gender-based violence with physical and emotional care.  

• A project aimed at improving literacy and well-being for girls and boys (aged 6-9) in underserved areas of South Kivu has already been forced to stop. The project supported 80 schools with high-quality teaching materials, teacher professional development and contextualised learning for children with disabilities. 80 schools will now lose this support, impacting 21,350 learners.  

occupied Palestinian territory

After 15 months of relentless war in Gaza, a pause in hostilities finally offered children a glimmer of hope. For more than 17,800 children who lost their lives, it’s too late. But for more than one million children facing hunger, disease, cold and fear, this is a chance for them to survive and recover.  

But recent cuts to foreign aid budgets mean children’s lives are under threat once more as they are being cut off from lifesaving supplies.    

If the gaps in funding aren’t met, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers won’t get the nutritional support they need, children under five will stop being treated for acute malnutrition and displaced people won’t receive shelter or warm clothing.    

Urgent funding is needed to meet the extraordinary level of need in Gaza.   

Sudan

Since 15 April 2023, the conflict in Sudan has uprooted nearly 12 million people from their homes, the highest number of internally displaced people anywhere on earth.  

Children account for well over half. They are also facing severe hunger, with famine conditions confirmed in at least five areas.  

If the gaps in funding aren’t met, 300,000 people won't get the nutrition and food aid they desperately need at a time when catastrophic hunger is already claiming lives. Over one million people will be cut off from nutritional and medical care. 

Syria

In Syria, foreign aid cuts will shut down essential nutrition, child protection and education programmes across Syria, putting the lives of at least 17,000 people at risk. Without urgent action:

• 7,500 children under five and 4,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women won’t receive nutrition support in Northeast Syria.
• 1,300 children suffering from acute malnutrition won’t get the treatment they need in our nutrition centres in Northeast Syria.
• In Al Hol camp, where Save the Children is the only provider of education services, classes will have to close, robbing 640 children not just of education, but also protection from harm.
• Case management services that are supporting 250 children at risk of child marriage, family violence, neglect, and gender-based violence will grind to a halt.  
• We’ll have to stop supporting local partners in Northwest Syria who are operating malnutrition treatment centres and carrying out malnutrition screening.

We are doing everything we can to fill the gaps and keep fighting for children’s lives and rights. But we cannot do this alone. Your donation can help protect children’s lives today.