Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much and what proportion of the overseas aid budget is delivered in the form of direct (a) cash and (b) bank payments to individuals.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has supported cash transfers within its humanitarian and social protection systems work for a number of years because they are a well-evidenced mechanism for reducing extreme hunger and poverty at scale, building resilience to prevent crises, and meeting the lifesaving humanitarian needs of highly vulnerable people, e.g. during droughts and conflict.

In 2023, £881 million of bilateral UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) was spent on humanitarian aid, a proportion of which was cash payments. In the same year, £129 million (1.3 per cent of bilateral UK ODA) was spent on social protection, including but not only cash transfers.

Cash transfers are increasingly being delivered through electronic payment systems, reducing the administrative cost and making them more secure. The delivery modality varies by context - the FCDO does not collect aggregated data on these modalities for direct cash payments.