RE: International Planned Parenthood Federation – Submission to Call for Evidence: Future of UK aid and development assistance             

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) appreciates the opportunity to contribute evidence to the International Development Committee’s inquiry into the future of UK aid and development assistance.

As one of the world’s foremost Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) organisations, with a network of national Member Associations (MAs) in over 150 countries, and a long-standing partner of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), IPPF is uniquely placed to inform discussion about the UK’s continued funding for international affairs and global development.

RECOMMENDATIONS

This submission makes the following recommendations, in response to the key questions outlined within the committee’s Call for Evidence.

• Protect and Scale Up Funding for SRHR, Gender Equality, and LGBTQI+ Rights
• Strengthen Integration Across the Humanitarian–Development Nexus to Safeguard SRHR and Build Resilience in the Changing Global Context
• Invest in Rights-Based Approaches to Counter Democratic Backsliding
• Champion Meaningful Multilateral Reform to Safeguard SRHR and Gender Equality

1 – Protect and Scale Up Funding for SRHR, Gender Equality, and LGBTQI+ Rights

The UK has long been recognised as a global leader in advancing gender equality and SRHR, in 2023 ranking among the top European donors for SRHR disbursements as a share of overall ODA[i]. These investments have supported core UK aid and foreign policy objectives, including sustainable development, global health security, gender equality, and inclusive economic growth, as reflected in the International Women and Girls Strategy 2023–2030 and the Global Health Framework 2023–2025.

Flagship initiatives such as the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme (2018 - 2024) demonstrate the sustained impact of the UK’s investment in SRHR. Delivered by IPPF and partners, WISH enabled millions of women and girls in Africa and Asia to access contraception, reducing maternal and child mortality, preventing unintended pregnancies. The programme was also instrumental in strengthening national health systems through provider training, supply-chain improvements, and service delivery infrastructure[ii]. The successor programme, WISH-Dividend, builds on these gains aiming to enable an additional 7 million women and girls to choose if, when and how many children they have by supporting health system strengthening and sustainable, locally owned service delivery.

However, reductions to the UK aid budget, now at 0.3% of GNI, threaten these gains at a moment of escalating global need. Retrenchment in support for SRHR, gender and LGBTQI+ rights from traditional allies, such as the U.S. and European governments, is severely disrupting essential services and weakening health and social infrastructure at a global scale.

As the Guttmacher Institute reports, over 70% of international family planning funding is now at risk, 40% from the U.S. alone[iii]. Estimates show that a 50% reduction in SRHR funding would leave 5.5 million people without contraception, cause 1.9 million unintended pregnancies, and result in nearly 2,000 additional maternal deaths annually; a 70% reduction nearly doubles these losses[iv]. IPPF projects that over the next four years, approximately 8.6 million people will be denied SRHR services from our MAs due to the loss of U.S. funding. These impacts are being felt not only in service delivery, but within global supply chains, evidence systems and the ability of local actors to effectively advocate and defend the human rights of those most marginalised.

To meet the escalating global need, the UK should ringfence and scale up ODA investments in SRHR, gender equality, and LGBTQI+ rights, safeguarding progress in the most vulnerable sectors and ensuring lasting, measurable impact. Specifically, the UK should:

• Maintain, at minimum, current funding allocations: Commit at least 5% of total ODA to SRHR, ensure 12% of bilateral aid includes gender equality as a ‘principal’ investment (OECD DAC marker), and safeguard resources for LGBTQI+ initiatives.
• Invest in proven, high-impact approaches: Prioritise programming with demonstrated effectiveness, embedding gender equality and inclusion across all ODA investments to maximise impact and ensure reach to the most marginalised communities.
• Strengthen global health infrastructure: Bolster supply chains for SRHR and essential health commodities, including UNFPA Supplies and national systems, while investing in data, forecasting, and early-warning platforms to strengthen national health systems and ensure governments can allocate resources effectively.

2 – Strengthen Integration Across the Humanitarian–Development Nexus to Safeguard SRHR and Build Resilience in the Changing Global Context

The UK’s approach to development and humanitarian assistance must evolve to meet the demands of an increasingly complex global landscape. Conflicts, climate disasters, and protracted crises increasingly intersect with long-term development challenges, disrupting national health systems and placing women, girls, and LGBTQI+ populations at heightened risk. Over 70% of women and girls in humanitarian settings experience sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), often deliberately used as a weapon of war. Similarly, girls affected by conflict are 20% more likely to be forced into early marriage[v].

Frontline health workers are also under increasing threat. Between January 2024 - August 2025, WHO documented over 2,000 attacks on healthcare workers, across 21 countries, resulting in over 2,060 deaths[vi]. Similarly, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition recorded over 3,600 violent incidents targeting healthcare in conflict zones in 2024, including the killing of more than 900 health workers[vii]. These trends underscore the urgent need to protect frontline health workers, in line with International Humanitarian Law, to safeguard access to essential care.

Ensuring continuity of SRHR services within humanitarian settings requires prioritising these lifesaving interventions across the entire humanitarian-development nexus through preparedness interventions and initiatives such as the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP)[1] for SRH in crises. Local actors, especially women- and youth-led organisations, are critical throughout this cycle. Present before, during and after crises occur, these organisations are well-placed to reach the most marginalised populations, who are often underserved by national or international programming.

To ensure ODA remains responsive to a rapidly evolving global context, the UK should:

• Commit to long-term, predictable funding: Provide multi-year, flexible financial commitments to grassroots, women-led, and community-based organisations to enable sustainable, locally owned programming across the development-humanitarian nexus. This should include partnerships with UK-based and international NGOs with networked reach to enhance their capacity to support and collaborate effectively with local partner organisations.

• Deliver MISP and survivor-centred care: Embed lifesaving SRHR services, through the MISP, into all UK-funded humanitarian programming. This should prioritise prevention, response, and justice for survivors, and be coordinated with broader health and protection systems to maintain continuity and quality of care.
• Capacity building and technical support of local actors: Invest in organisational development, leadership training, and systems strengthening to enable high-quality, scalable programmes. This should leverage UK expertise to support local leadership in national disaster planning, service delivery, and accountability.
• Champion the protection of health workers: Advocate for full compliance with International Humanitarian Law in bilateral and multilateral negotiations, support mechanisms that ensure accountability for attacks on healthcare personnel and provide direct resources for the protection of frontline responders.

4 – Invest in Rights-Based Approaches to Counter Democratic Backsliding

When women, girls, and LGBTQI+ people can safely exercise their rights and participate fully in social, economic, and political life, societies are more stable, resilient, and prosperous. The UK’s International Women and Girls Strategy (2023–2030) recognises this, affirming that defending rights is central to building peaceful, inclusive societies.

Yet the global rise of authoritarian and ultra-conservative movements is actively undermining these objectives, weaponizing gender and sexuality to consolidate power, restrict bodily autonomy, and erode democratic norms. These attacks directly threaten UK national security and foreign policy priorities by destabilizing societies, undermining governance, and weakening resilience to conflict and extremism. Concerningly, transnational anti-rights networks are exerting growing influence in key national and global spaces, further challenging democratic institutions, civic space, and the protection of human rights.

To address these threats, the UK should adopt a proactive, evidence-driven approach that integrates human rights, governance, and peacebuilding across its aid and foreign policy:

• Invest in intelligence, research, and monitoring: Allocate resources across gender, human rights and security departments to identify and track anti-gender and anti-rights networks, narratives, and funding flows.
• Support feminist, LGBTQI+, and rights-based organisations: Support the building of cross-sectoral coalitions to develop effective counter-narratives and defend civic space at national and multilateral levels.
• Strengthen digital resilience: Fund initiatives that combat harmful online narratives, enhance digital literacy, and promote inclusive, fact-based discourse.
• Maintain predictable support for trusted global partners, such as IPPF and other organisations advancing SRHR and rights-based approaches, whose work plays a critical role in upholding democratic values and protecting human rights defenders.

5 – Champion Meaningful Multilateral Reform to Safeguard SRHR and Gender Equality

The multilateral order faces a legitimacy and effectiveness crisis. Across the UN system, anti-rights actors are increasingly shaping agendas, occupying strategic decision-making roles, and attempting to weaken commitments to SRHR, gender equality, and diversity, threatening the universality of human rights and undermining core UK foreign policy priorities on peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and global health.

These dynamics also have significant implications for the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, as efforts to erode SRHR and gender equality commitments directly undermine women’s participation, protection, and leadership in peace and security processes. At the same time, structural reform proposals such as the UN80 initiative, including potential mergers of UNFPA, UN Women, and DESA, and the sunsetting of UNAIDS, risk diluting institutional mandates and weakening the global SRHR architecture if not carefully implemented. Together with a growing disconnect between multilateral policymaking and the lived realities of affected communities, these trends underscore the urgent need for more inclusive, accountable, and rights-based governance mechanisms.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a major funder of multilateral institutions, and a historic leader in global health and gender equality, the UK has both the credibility and responsibility to help shape this reform agenda. The UK’s aid philosophy, centred on human rights, evidence-based policy, and locally led development, aligns naturally with a vision of a revitalised, accountable, and inclusive multilateral system.

The UK should use its diplomatic and financial influence to:

• Champion rights-based reform and protect global SRHR, gender equality, and LGBTQI+ commitments: Support the full integration of SRHR into the WPS agenda and actively defend normative language in multilateral spaces to prevent dilution by anti-rights actors.
• Defend the integrity of UNFPA’s and UN Women’s mandates: Support reform efforts that strengthen, rather than weaken, UN agencies’ ability to deliver on the ICPD Programme of Action and Beijing Platform for Action, safeguarding their technical leadership and independence.
• Leverage UK leadership and soft diplomacy to drive accountable, evidence-based multilateral reform: utilize the UK’s influence, technical expertise and convening power for effective coalition-building with like-minded states and civil society to promote transparent, rights-based governance across the multilateral system.
• Promote meaningful civil society participation: Ensure that feminist, youth-led, and community-based organisations, particularly from the Global South, have a formal voice in decision-making and reform processes.