Women, young and disabled people risk being left out as Britain shifts aid spending to boost its own trade, experts said on Tuesday, with worries over Brexit already hitting the economy.
A parliamentary watchdog and aid agencies criticized plans by Britain's foreign aid agency, the Department for International Development (DFID), to focus on "trade as an engine for poverty reduction," announced in January. "A strategy heavily weighted towards trade alone can actively disadvantage the most marginalized groups," said Stephen Twigg, chairman of the International Development Committee (IDC), which scrutinizes DFID's spending and strategies.
"Girls and women, disabled and young people will lose out unless DFID undertakes to protect them," he said in a statement, reinforcing the warning issued in a report by the committee that the poorest and most vulnerable could be disadvantaged under the new 'aid for trade' approach.