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Podcast: Debunking Economics - the podcast
Episode: Rethinking Foreign Aid
Description: Foreign aid is shrinking fast. The UK has cut its commitment from 0.7% of national income to 0.3%, the US has scrapped USAID and axed 80% of its projects, and overall global aid is down by more than a quarter in just five years. That’s less than 0.2% of the world economy — smaller than Walmart’s turnover — even as the Gates Foundation warns that cuts have already reversed decades of progress in child survival. In 2025 alone, 200,000 extra children under five are expected to die from preventable causes. And in places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Central African Republic, one in ten infants won’t ma...