Last modified on Thu 6 May 2021 10.16 EDT The UK has scrapped three rounds of grants to small international development charities, prompting fury that it has wiped out funding for 42 projects around the world to save âless than the [£2.6m] cost of the Downing Street press roomâ. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told charities last week that rounds six, seven and eight of the Small Charities Challenge Fund (SCCF) would not go ahead because of aid cuts, cancelling in total about £2.1m of funds earmarked for new and future programmes, including many that had been approved. âThe cruelty of these cuts cannot be overstated. For less than the cost of the Downing Street press room, small UK charities would have delivered more than 40 transformative projects to the worldâs most vulnerable people,â said Jess Price, a director at Health Improvement Project Zanzibar. âInstead of delivering this critical work, we are now trying to recoup losses and rebuild local trust.â