UK aid cuts force Bangladesh climate project to close early
Britain’s shrinking foreign aid budget is ending climate resilience program in Sundarbans two years early, cutting planned support for about 20,000 people
DHAKA, Bangladesh (MNTV) — A British-funded climate adaptation project serving communities in Bangladesh’s cyclone-prone Sundarbans is being shut down two years earlier than planned as the U.K. slashes overseas aid spending, disrupting programs designed to help residents cope with rising seas, stronger storms and increasingly saline farmland.
The project, partly managed by British development organization Practical Action, began in 2023 and was supposed to operate until 2028.
But funding cuts will force Practical Action to end its work in September 2026, leaving the program reaching about 37,000 people instead of the roughly 57,000 initially targeted, according to The Independent.
The closure is part of a much larger retreat in British development spending after the government decided to reduce foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income.
U.K. bilateral assistance to Bangladesh alone is expected to fall from 66.7 million British pounds ($90 million) in 2025-26 to 31 million British pounds ($42 million) in 2026-27.
For communities around the Sundarbans, the cuts affect projects intended to make everyday livelihoods more resilient to a changing climate.
Practical Action’s work has included solar energy, climate-resilient farming and aquaculture technologies and weather-information systems that can provide early warnings of cyclones and extreme rainfall.
Practical Action had expected to receive 2.2 million British pounds by 2026 but ultimately received significantly less, according to Tamanna Rahma, the organization’s climate resilience lead in Bangladesh.
The charity was informed in April that its work would have to end in June, giving it only months to wind down a project designed to run for another two years. After lobbying the British government, Practical Action secured an extension until September.
Rahma warned that such an abrupt withdrawal risks weakening projects already established and damaging trust built with communities over the previous two and a half years.
“This abrupt cut has threatened our reputation in the community,” she said, adding that it had also affected the long-term stability of existing interventions and reduced the organization’s ability to plan an orderly exit.
The consequences are particularly significant in the Sundarbans, a vast mangrove ecosystem stretching across the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta and into neighboring India.
The region acts as a natural barrier against cyclones coming from the Bay of Bengal but is itself increasingly threatened by climate change.
Communities there are confronting stronger storms, saltwater intrusion and the gradual loss of productive land. Rahma said rising seas are making soils increasingly saline while severe storms and cyclones are placing greater pressure on residents, even as financing for practical adaptation measures becomes harder to secure.
The Sundarbans covers more than 10,000 square kilometers and supports an extraordinary range of wildlife, including endangered Bengal tigers and river dolphins. Much of the forest is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
But for people living along its edges, climate change is already reshaping where and how they can live. The region continues to bear scars from Cyclone Aila, which devastated settlements and infrastructure in 2009, while sea-level rise is now damaging agricultural land and contributing to displacement.
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