MERGING the Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign Office is an “unnecessary and expensive distraction,” almost 200 charities warned today.

And campaign Global Justice Now warned that it completed a decade-long “corporate hijack” of the aid agenda.

The government decided to scrap the department, tasked with leading Britain’s “work to end extreme poverty,” through the merger announced last week.

Charities, NGOs and think tanks now say the move suggests that Britain is turning its back on the world’s poorest people.

The 188 groups, including charities Save the Children UK, ActionAid UK and Tearfund, have written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking him to urgently reconsider.

Save the Children UK also warned that the world is already on the brink of “potentially the worst reversal in progress for children that we’ve seen since 1945.”

There is also a risk that Britain will be less able to respond to challenges such as global health security and climate change, the letter warns.

The decision to close DfID after 23 years, merging into the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office from September, has likewise drawn criticism from opposition MPs and three former prime ministers, including David Cameron.

Save the Children UK chief executive Kevin Watkins said it is a “terrible decision” announced with “appalling timing.”

He feared some politicians will call for the scaling down of Britain’s aid programme to increase domestic spending amid the Covid-19 crisis.

“In the world’s poorest countries you’ve got over a billion children who are now out of school, who are at real risk … in the same way we have to view education as a really critical part of life chances for young people in the UK, that’s equally true in the poorest countries.”

Stephanie Draper, chief executive of the Bond international development network, said charities fear that aid will be directed away to be used in trade deals.

“This would be a disaster for the UK’s credibility as a world leader in development and aid, especially at a time when Covid-19 requires a global response — without which it remains a threat to us all,” she said.

Global Justice Now spokesman Jonathan Stevenson branded the abolition of DfID “the culmination of a decade-long corporate hijack of aid.”

“From tripling the budget of CDC Group, the government’s controversial private development bank, to the Prosperity Fund, which explicitly puts aid at the service of post-Brexit trade deals, more and more aid has been diverted into projects that benefit big business,” he told the Morning Star.
 
“Putting aid under the control of the Foreign Office — which still has a mural glorifying the British empire in its lobby — will only accelerate this corporate takeover.”

Mr Stevenson said reversing the decision to scrap DfID and choosing to protect the size of the aid budget “are only part of this bigger struggle.”

“We must demand aid is used to redistribute economic and political power in the world, not just lay the ground for Boris Johnson’s ‘Empire 2.0’,” he added.

Civil Service union PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Boris Johnson’s slash and burn approach to international aid not only threatens the livelihoods of our members in DfID and [the Foreign & Commonwealth Office] but will significantly damage our relations with other countries at a time when we need all the friends we can muster.”

A government spokeswoman claimed the merger will strengthen Britain’s ability to “lead the world’s efforts” to recover from the pandemic and “ensure that all our national assets are used to safeguard British interests and values overseas.”