Charities must “keep applying pressure on the government to make the case for development assistance”, Unicef UK’s chief has urged.

Speaking on the Third Sector Podcast, Philip Goodwin urged the voluntary sector to continue making the case for international development assistance, saying the recent aid cuts are not “irreversible”.

The UK government recently announced plans to reduce its aid spending from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of gross national income by 2026/27, in a bid to boost defence spending.

The decision is expected to wipe more than £5bn off the UK’s annual aid budget.

But Goodwin has urged charities to continue lobbying against the cuts, saying: “The current Labour government, they’re not ideologically opposed to development assistance. They’re saying it’s a budgetary concern.

“So I think it’s important to keep applying pressure on the government to make the case for development assistance.”

Goodwin said it was important not to give up or think the cuts were irreversible.

He also urged charities to consider different ways of engaging the public, saying: “There is a broad public that supports development. It is perhaps not as big as it was, but there are people who connect with those issues, who connect with what you might identify as progressive issues.”

When it comes to engaging the public on international development issues, it’s about “making the connection with the human story”, said Goodwin.

“As development organisations, we often talk about millions or billions of children affected – very large numbers,” he said, adding that it’s vital to make individual children’s stories clear.

“Although it can seem a long way away, those human stories are really important and connecting with those and finding a place of connection, whether that is a link to a particular place, whether that be Bangladesh or Kenya or wherever,” he said.

Goodwin pointed to Unicef’s football fundraising event Soccer Aid as an example of connecting with people on a local level. 

“It is an entertainment event, but it connects people around bigger issues. It connects people with where they are, not just presenting something that feels very different for them.

“So it’s about connecting with locality, with issues that they can connect with,” Goodwin said.

He added that charities also need to focus on the difference they have made, saying that success can “sometimes be lost in the narrative”.

Goodwin said: “Sometimes when we’re going out and asking for more, we forget to say what we’ve achieved and [it’s] so important to tell people what we’ve achieved and therefore why it is worth investing.”

He said: “I sometimes worry that we keep talking about aid. It’s actually an investment. It’s an investment in children’s futures.”