Nearly 23 million additional deaths are expected by 2030 as a result of countries like the US and UK dramatically cutting their overseas aid, a new report estimates.
The peer-reviewed study, produced by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and published in the influential health journal The Lancet, finds that cuts to aid programmes in 93 countries – including 38 in Sub-Saharan Africa – will result in 22.6m extra deaths by 2030.
With that total including some 5.4 million children under the age of five, the findings have been labelled a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
“These findings give a voice to millions of vulnerable people and show the profound moral cost of the zero-sum approach many political leaders are taking,” said Dr Rajiv J Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, which helped to fund the report.
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Particularly devastating to aid efforts in 2025 was Trump’s closure of USAID, which chaotically ended funding for many projects mid-way through completion, devastating climate resilience programmes and healthcare systems in numerous developing countries.
Previous research from ISGlobal using the same methodology found that the dismantling of USAID alone could lead to more than 14 million additional preventable deaths by 2030.
