Cuts to overseas aid will worsen shocks to global economy, David Miliband says

Exclusive: Former UK foreign secretary says poor and rich countries alike will be hit amid humanitarian crisis sparked by Iran war Cuts to overseas aid by countries including the US and the UK risk stoking global economic instability amid the humanitarian crisis resulting from the Iran war, David Miliband has said. The former British foreign secretary and head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the US “abandoning” of its aid programme under Donald Trump would worsen shocks to the global economy that would impact poor and wealthy countries alike. Miliband also said he regretted that Keir Starmer’s government was slashing the UK’s aid budget, because supporting the world’s poorest was morally the right thing to do and a “good investment for Britain”. “An untended humanitarian crisis is an incubator of political instability. We are in a more connected world than ever before,” said the former Labour minister. “The Iran war shows how connected we are, but the connections go the other way [from poor to rich countries], too.” Speaking to the Guardian at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington, Miliband said the Middle East conflict would increas