Bond

Responding to news that the Conservatives would shrink the UK aid budget to just £1 billion a year to fund prison places in the UK, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said: “The Conservative Party’s short term decision to cut UK aid to solve fiscal and domestic pressures is a false economy – that would leave us all, at home and abroad, paying a higher price down the line.

Earlier this year we completed research, funded by the Gates Foundation, synthesising 18 months of polling and grey literature on how the British public feel about “aid” in its broadest sense. It was commissioned in the wake of the February 2025 cuts, at a moment when engaging the public on the value of aid and playing our fair part globally felt more urgent than it had for a generation. We were aware that excellent data already existed.

In the UK, there is still a strong moral instinct to support people facing poverty and crisis. But public engagement is under pressure from low trust, doubts about effectiveness and a lack of connection to people’s everyday concerns. This report brings together 18 months of research on how the British public understands and engages with overseas “aid” and advice about what we can do about it.

This webinar explored how radio can be incorporated into community listening and humanitarian decision-making. Against the backdrop of the current Ebola response in eastern DRC, ORB International introduced wAIve, a capability that captures public FM broadcasts and uses AI to transcribe, translate and structure them in near real time.

Wellbeing. Flourishing. Holistic impact. What do these concepts mean to you? We often use these aspirational terms in the NGO sector to describe the big-picture changes we want to see in the lives of the individuals and communities we work with. But do we really understand what we mean by these terms? What changes are we hoping to see? How do we measure whether this kind of “whole-life” change is actually taking place?

The past few years have tested the resilience of the humanitarian sector to its core. The sector has experienced a collision of myriad forces that are pushing, pulling and stretching it in ways it has never experienced before. Just as humanitarian needs have substantially increased, funding has significantly decreased, further widening the financial gap in an already overstretched system. The donor landscape has also changed dramatically.

In response to the Foreign Secretary’s speech at Labour Party Conference, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said: Centring our values, bolder actions, and building alliances: we’re pleased to hear the Foreign Secretary put these principles at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy.

With the UK’s 2027 G20 presidency fast approaching, the government has a historic opportunity to champion the global financial reforms that could improve people’s lives, both in the UK and around the world. This briefing highlights the unique opportunity provided by UK’s G20 presidency, and sets out three fixes to build a global economy that works for people and planet. Download Briefing Share Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn

Over recent years, charities have rightly done a huge amount of work to move away from the paternalistic and often harmful storytelling approaches of the past. There is now a much stronger emphasis on dignity, agency and respect in how we represent the communities organisations exist to serve. That progress matters, and it should not be undone.

In recent months, several commentators have pointed out that the dramatic cuts to aid budgets happening around the world are not a response to declines in public support. According to a recent poll conducted in June 2026, for example, 79% of Americans agree that foreign aid can be “a good and effective part of US foreign policy”, while 72% agreed that it ‘“keeps the US safer and more secure”.