‘Shortsighted’: UK cuts aid to project preparing cities for natural disaster

From Quito to Kathmandu, millions will be endangered by cuts affecting planning for floods, earthquakes and fires, experts say

UK aid cuts to a programme working to reduce the disaster risk to poor communities around the world could endanger millions of lives and slam shut a brief window of opportunity to build safer cities for centuries to come, experts have warned.

Professor John McCloskey, from Edinburgh University, said the 70% cut to this year's budget for the Tomorrow's Cities project was an act of vandalism" that had wrecked the past two years of collaboration with scientists, NGOs, authorities and communities in Ecuador's capital Quito, Nairobi, Kathmandu and Istanbul.