The UK’s Global Partnerships Conference 2026: Outcomes

In May 2026, the UK Government hosted a global conference on international development, along with South Africa, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and the UK’s development finance institution, British International Investment, a global conference on international development.

Echoing the government’s “four shifts” in the UK approach to development and the April 2026 meeting of G7 development ministers, the conference was held to build new coalitions to address global challenges, unlock investment for development, and support more country-led economic growth. The conference produced a three-point compact on these topics.

The meeting follows the decision of many leading aid donors, including the UK, United States, Germany and France, to cut their aid spending.

This briefing sets out the global funding landscape and progress on the sustainable development goals, what the government and others hoped for from the conference, and the conference outcomes and next steps.

What is the state of global aid spending and progress on global development goals? Global aid spending in 2025 was the lowest since 2015

Since 2024, the world’s leading aid donors have separately announced that they would cut their overseas aid spending.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, which includes the world’s major donors except China, said that aid from its members fell by 23% in 2025. Based on current plans, it expects a further 6% drop in 2026.

Germany, the United States, the UK, Japan and France accounted for 96% of the total decline in aid. Due to the extent of US cuts, and despite its own reductions, in 2025 Germany became the world’s largest aid donor for the first time.

Total aid stood at US$163 billion in 2025, down from $232 billion in 2023. Spending has now returned to near-2015 levels. As a result, support fell in 2025 for least-developed countries, sub-Saharan Africa and humanitarian aid, among other areas.

For an overview of global aid in 2026, see the Commons Library briefing The UK and international development: Global issues for 2026. For more on UK policy, see UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28.

Progress on many development goals has stalled

As set out in the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s report on The changing global context for development cooperation, aid spending is falling at a time when the global armed conflict and population displacement are widespread, and in an aid sector “facing urgent calls for reform”.

The latest UN report on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), published in July 2025, said that the world was “on track” or “making moderate progress” on 35% of the 139 quantifiable SDG indicators but 18% had gone into reverse since 2015.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 goals, which are intended to be met by 2030. They include targets to achieve zero hunger and zero extreme poverty, ensure access to high-quality primary and secondary education, and increase clean energy use.

The report estimated that while 1.5 billion people escaped poverty between 1990 and 2022, an estimated 800 million remain in extreme poverty (defined as $3 a day). It said it was “extremely unlikely” that the target of eradicating extreme poverty globally would be met by 2030.

It said this reflected the legacy of the covid-19 pandemic, economic instability and climate changes as well as low economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (75% of those in extreme poverty now live in sub-Saharan Africa or fragile and conflict-affected states).

As stated in the G7 ministerial meeting in April 2026, “public resources alone are insufficient to meet global development needs”. Meeting all the sustainable development goals would require an estimated US$2.5 trillion to $4.3 trillion from 2023 to 2030 (see the Library briefing, Financing for development: Global aid landscape 2025).

What were the UK Government’s aims at the conference?

Plans for the conference were first announced in March 2025. The then Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, said that the conference would be an opportunity to bring together Western donors to discuss how to be “sharper and smarter” on aid spending. However, he acknowledged that “reform is better before the cuts” (the government had announced it would reduce UK aid in February 2025).

Speaking in 2026, the International Development Minister, Baroness Chapman, said that the conference would seek to “move the debate on” on how international development objectives are met. This would include raising more diverse sources of finance beyond aid and deploying more technology.

She also said that conference discussions would inform the UK’s presidency of the G20 group of countries in 2027. The government has confirmed debt relief and leveraging more private financing for development will be among its priorities for the presidency.

Private finance and other funding alternatives to aid

Although official aid spending has fallen globally, the level of private finance mobilised by aid (such as through de-risking or co-funding) has risen. In 2024, it stood at $75 billion in 2024 (compared with $214 billion in official aid).

Remittances (individuals sending money from abroad, often to family), foreign direct investment and local tax revenues are also important sources of development finance beyond aid.

However, as noted by the International Monetary Fund, lower income countries tend to receive a low proportion of foreign direct investment (FDI) and weaknesses in governance and large informal sectors are associated with smaller tax bases. In 2023, for the world’s least developed countries, aid was their largest source of external finance, ahead of remittances and FDI.

In its “modern approach to development”, set out in March 2026, the government said that the majority of future UK humanitarian aid will be increasingly focused on conflict-affected and fragile areas. In many other countries, UK will provide support for economic growth, trade, expertise and local revenue-raising rather than humanitarian aid (see section 2 of the Library briefing, UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3%).

What were some of the conference outcomes? Global partnership compact

The conference produced a three-part “Global Partnerships Compact”. The International Development Minister, Baroness Chapman, said it was a synthesis of engagement with over 400 people and organisations, rather than a “typical negotiated text”, and would act as a “framework” for action.

A summary of its three parts is below.

1. Financing sustainable development

Signatories commit to using a full range of funding tools, such as domestic resources, private investment, philanthropy and support for entrepreneurship, to promote resilient and inclusive growth.

Actions will include helping countries to raise more tax revenue locally and addressing illicit finance and debt relief (the government will hold a conference on illicit finance in December 2026).

Countries will “maintain the vital role” of aid in certain areas such as poverty reduction, health, and climate. On other areas, it will be used “strategically” to encourage private investment in high-risk sectors.

2. Technology, research and innovation

Signatories will promote the use of data and research to address shared global challenges, strengthen cybersecurity and internet access, and invest in local skills and institutions to strengthen local digital autonomy.

They will also support responsible digital and AI governance.

3. Development partnerships

Development partners, including governments, multilateral agencies, the private sector, civil society groups, charities and development finance institutions will develop “respectful partnerships that enable country and community leadership”.

The signatories commit to “shift power” so that local governments and actors can “lead” and aid donors no longer substitute for local systems and leadership. They will also reduce fragmentation in the aid sector and promote inclusion and equalities across the partnerships.

Specific actions

Specific actions, commitments and signatories will be published in an annex, which has not been published at the time of writing.

The compact says that these actions are needed to ensure that the SDGs are delivered by their 2030 deadline and will help “reset” development cooperation.

UK announcements on aid for women and girls

At the conference, the government also published a new “strategic framework” for UK aid work for women and girls to 2030 and launched a new global coalition to end violence against women and girls. A conference will be held next year to discuss progress and further commitments.

As of May 2026, the coalition has eight members: the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Spain, Jamaica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Australia.

This framework contains similar commitments to previous strategies, such as empowering women and girls in civil society, the economy and politics. See the Library briefing on UK aid for women and girls for past strategies.

Earlier in 2026, the government had committed for 90% of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office bilateral aid (that for specific countries and programmes) to have a focus on gender equality by 2030 (up from the previous target of 80%).

In 2023/24, the proportion of aid spending meeting the target was 52%.

While welcoming the target, the Commons International Development Committee has said that the prioritisation of women and girls “does not negate nor improve the impacts of funding cuts” since aid was reduced from 0.7% of gross national income from 2021 (first to 0.5% and now 0.3%).

What did think tanks hope for from the conference? Addressing fragmentation, advancing localisation

Before the conference, several think tanks and civil society groups (see next section) called for the conference to take action to reform the aid sector to reduce fragmentation and advance “localisation” in aid delivery.

Aid fragmentation refers to uncoordinated duplication and “siloing” of aid efforts and growth of many smaller aid programmes. Several donors are now seeking to address this, including under the UN at 80 reform programme.

Localisation broadly refers to decisions on funding and policy-making being informed by those closest to the point of aid delivery. This could include in-country governments or local civil society groups. However, there is no single definition of localisation applied by aid donors.

Localisation is far from a new agenda; for example, the 2016 “Grand Bargain” seeks to increase the proportion of aid spent through local and national responders to humanitarian crises. In 2025, the Commons International Development Committee had said that the government was “not making sufficient progress” on the localisation agenda, despite “worthy intentions”.

Analysis and articles

The Chatham House think tank said that the conference was an opportunity to have a “frank conversation” about the parts of the aid system that are “fragmented and inefficient”, while the Center for Global Development think tank similarly argued that there was an opportunity to address “silos” in development and re-assert multilateral collaboration.

Analysis for the Overseas Development Institute argued that “lowering the cost of capital across the Global South” could be the “single most transformative shift” that could occur in development finance (that is, taking measures to reduce interest on debt). It said this could include multilateral development banks shifting from being “lender[s] of last resort to first mover in risk”, deploying more credit guarantees, and addressing debt.

Analysis published by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) umbrella group Bond also called for the conference to expand the role of local groups in the delivery of aid and away from externally delivered and led aid.

What was the response to the compact? Mixed charity reaction

On publication of the compact, the Independent newspaper reported that several charities said they would not sign it. Oxfam said the commitments were too “limited” on climate, humanitarian aid, and gender equality. However, Christian Aid said it would sign, in order to “influence the outcomes” of later discussions.

Bond said that the conference had “shown promise” for locally led development cooperation “grounded in human rights and accountability standards”. But it said that there needed to be a “step change” in mobilising sources of finance beyond aid and that localisation should not prioritise engagement with governments over civil society.

Reaction within the UK Parliament

The chair of the International Development Committee, Sarah Champion said she was concerned that the “ambitions of the conference far outstrip […] what can be achieved with a much-reduced aid budget”.

In its report on future cooperation and resilience in UK aid, published before the conference, the committee had expressed concern that the government had provided “no detail” on how ‘poverty alleviation’ will be advanced across the four shifts towards investment, localisation, provision of expertise, and system-support.

The committee called for greater evidence on the approach adopted and for the government to consider the committee-drafted “Approach to aid and development”. A government response is due to be published.

At the conference, the former International Development Minister, Andrew Mitchell MP, also cautioned that “you cannot merely focus on investment” and that the humanitarian system itself was “profoundly stressed”.

Further reading

• Commons Library, UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28. Trajectory of UK aid spending and government policy priorities.
• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Global partnerships conference 2026. Collection of conference documents and ministerial statements.