The British government is facing severe backlash after quietly reducing its humanitarian aid to Myanmar, a move that rights advocates warn will cost lives and directly benefit the regime which seized power during a military coup on Feb. 1, 2021.
The cuts were detailed in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) annual report, which was published on July 16 without an accompanying press release or public announcement.
The figures, buried in the appendixes of the 264-page document, reveal that U.K. aid to Myanmar will fall to £55.3 million ($74 million USD) for the current financial year, down from a core allocation of roughly £66 million ($88 million USD).
According to the report, the reduced budget will remain in place until at least 2029.
Burma Campaign UK, a prominent human rights advocacy group, strongly condemned the decision. The organization noted that the new figure is roughly half of what the U.K. provided to Myanmar prior to the 2021 coup, despite a massive escalation in the country’s humanitarian crisis.
“British aid to Burma saves lives so these cuts will kill people,” said Anna Roberts, the executive director of Burma Campaign UK. “Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper just gave the Burmese military a helping hand by cutting aid to Burma.”
A Deepening Crisis
The reduction in aid comes as Myanmar grapples with a catastrophic nationwide conflict. Since the military ousted the democratically elected government, regime forces have been engaged in a brutal civil war against pro-democracy resistance groups and ethnic armed organizations.
Official estimates indicate that more than 3.8 million people are currently internally displaced within Myanmar, though local civil society groups place the figure significantly higher, estimating up to five million displaced individuals.
An estimated 80 per cent of the population is now living in chronic poverty.
The rights group warned that the aid cuts play directly into the military’s strategy of intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure—including homes, schools, and health clinics—to engineer a humanitarian crisis designed to demoralize and drain the resources of the resistance.
The conflict’s human toll has been devastating. Since 2021, more than 100,000 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, and over 14,000 political prisoners remain incarcerated.
According to Burma Campaign UK’s tracking, the military currently conducts an airstrike every two and a half hours, resulting in the death of a child on average every 29 hours.
Sanctions Stalled
Advocates also highlighted the U.K. government’s lack of action on the diplomatic front, noting that Britain has failed to introduce any new targeted sanctions against the Myanmar military for almost two years.
“This government is failing the people of Burma, cutting off aid instead of cutting off arms and money going to the Burmese military,” Roberts said.
The timing of the FCDO report’s release—published just hours before Parliament adjourned for its summer recess and while national news coverage was dominated by England’s World Cup exit—has drawn further criticism regarding a lack of transparency.
(Note: The FCDO’s £92.8 million total expenditure for Myanmar in the past financial year included a £25 million emergency relief package following an earthquake, which was allocated on top of the £66 million core budget).
