Category Archives: Aid

‘I’ve already sold my daughters; now, my kidney’: winter in Afghanistan’s slums

Posted on by

Crushing poverty is forcing starving displaced people to make desperate choices

The temperature is dropping to below zero in western Afghanistan and Delaram Rahmati is struggling to find food for her eight children.

Since leaving the family home in the country’s Badghis province four years ago, the Rahmatis have been living in a mud hut with a plastic roof in one of Herat city’s slums. Drought made their village unliveable and the land unworkable. Like an estimated 3.5 million Afghans who have been forced to leave their homes, the Rahmatis now live in a neighbourhood for internally displaced people (IDP).

Continue reading...

Vulnerable Malians could ‘pay the price’ of heavy sanctions, warn aid groups

Posted on by

NGOs call for aid exemption to EU-backed sanctions imposed after election postponement and arrival of Russian paramilitary

More than a dozen aid organisations have called for humanitarian exemptions to heavy sanctions imposed on Mali after the military leadership postponed planned February elections.

The EU has announced support for the sanctions imposed earlier this month by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which include closing borders and a trade embargo.

Continue reading...

World’s poorest bear brunt of climate crisis: 10 underreported emergencies

Posted on by

Care International report highlights ‘deep injustice’ neglected by world’s media, as extreme weather along with Covid wipes out decades of progress

From Afghanistan to Ethiopia, about 235 million people worldwide needed assistance in 2021. But while some crises received global attention, others are lesser known.

Humanitarian organisation Care International has published its annual report of the 10 countries that had the least attention in online articles in five languages around the world in 2021, despite each having at least 1 million people affected by conflict or climate disasters.

Continue reading...

Warning over fuel and food stocks as ‘hellish’ Tigray reels from airstrikes

Posted on by

Stocks run perilously low, with main supply route into region of northern Ethiopia unusable since December

Humanitarian organisations in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia are running perilously low on food and fuel stocks as an intensified wave of airstrikes further hampers a threadbare aid effort already stymied by lack of access.

In what it calls a de facto blockade, the UN says fighting between Tigrayan rebels and forces loyal to the Ethiopian government has rendered the main supply route into the war-torn region unusable since mid-December.

Continue reading...

Ethiopia lifts five-month suspension of Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work

Posted on by

NRC, which was accused of spreading ‘misinformation’, says it will struggle to reach those in need as Tigray conflict enters third year

Ethiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”.

The government ordered the NRC, along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July but while MSF’s suspension was lifted in October, the NRC’s was extended.

Continue reading...

Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

Posted on by

Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.

Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

Continue reading...

UK accused of abandoning world’s poor as aid turned into ‘colonial’ investment

Posted on by

Rebrand of Foreign Office’s development arm, seen as effort to rival China’s loans, will shift aid to private sector, warn NGOs and unions

The British government has been accused by NGOs and trade unions of “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest as they urge Liz Truss to keep aid focused on poverty reduction rather than geopolitical manoeuvring.

In a joint letter to the foreign secretary, the group criticises the rebranding of the UK’s development investment arm, which will see the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) become British International Investment (BII) next year.

Continue reading...

Helping refugees starving in Poland’s icy border forests is illegal – but it’s not the real crime | Anna Alboth

Posted on by

The asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border are not aggressors: they are desperate pawns in a disgusting political struggle

One thought is a constant in my head: “I have kids at home, I cannot go to jail, I cannot go to jail.” The politics are beyond my reach or that of the victims on the Poland-Belarus border. It involves outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, getting through to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. It’s ironic that this border has more than 50 media crews gathered, yet Poland is the only place in the EU where journalists cannot freely report.

Meanwhile, the harsh north European winter is closing in and my fingers are freezing in the dark snowy nights.

Continue reading...

‘More cautious’ China shifts Africa approach from debt to vaccine diplomacy

Posted on by

Analysis: After two decades of major financial aid, Beijing is rethinking its strategy on continent amid Covid crisis and fierce competition for power, analysts say

As debt concerns rise and a new coronavirus variant emerges, China appears to be adjusting its approach to Africa: cutting finance pledges while doubling down on vaccine diplomacy.

On Monday last week, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, opened a China-Africa forum with a pledge to supply 1bn vaccine doses to Africa, amid global concern over the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. He also pledged $40bn to the continent, ranging from credit lines to investments – a significant cut from the $60bn promised at the previous two summits.

Continue reading...

Activists call for revolution in ‘dated and colonial’ aid funding

Posted on by

Aspen Institute’s New Voices want donors to exercise humility and trust those receiving grants to know what their communities need

Aid donors are being urged to revolutionise the way money is spent to move away from colonial ideas and create meaningful change.

Ahead of a two-day conference this week, activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America have called on public and private global health donors – including governments, the United Nations, private philanthropists and international organisations – to prioritise funding for programmes driven by the needs of the community involved, rather than dictated by preconceived objectives.

Continue reading...

Failure to share Covid vaccines ‘coming back to haunt us’, says Gordon Brown

Posted on by

Ex-PM says world was ‘forewarned’ of dangers of failing to vaccinate poorer countries amid rise of new variant

The failure of the world to get vaccines to the developing world is “coming back to haunt us”, Gordon Brown has warned, as experts said the emergence of variants such as B.1.1.529 could have been avoided if jabs had been more fairly distributed.

Writing in the Guardian, the Labour former prime minister said the world had been “forewarned” that a lack of vaccines in poorer countries could have serious consequences for the pandemic.

Continue reading...

Naomi Campbell’s fashion charity investigated over finances

Posted on by

Regulator examines potential mismanagement at Fashion for Relief and payments to trustee

The fashion charity established by the supermodel Naomi Campbell has come under formal investigation from the charities watchdog over misconduct concerns relating to its management and finances.

Campbell created Fashion for Relief in 2005 to raise funds for children living in poverty and adversity around the world, and says it has raised millions over the years for good causes through its annual charity fashion show.

Continue reading...

UN Palestine aid agency is ‘close to collapse’ after funding cuts

Posted on by

UK has cut relief grant for Palestinians by more than 50% from £42.5m in 2020 to £20.8m in 2021

Cuts to the budget of the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians – including a halving of the UK grant – means the agency is close to collapse, the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, has said. The UK has cut its core grant by more than 50% from £42.5m in 2020 to £20.8m in 2021.

Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which serves Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza but also in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, said the agency was in an existential crisis due to a $100m (£74m) shortfall this year, but also because of a method of long-term funding that has proved unsustainable.

Continue reading...

They stayed to fight the Taliban. Now the protesters are being hunted down

Posted on by

Women’s rights activists fear for their lives as Afghanistan’s new rulers infiltrate, detain, beat and torture groups of protesters

A month ago, Reshmin was busy organising protests against Taliban rule in online groups of hundreds of fellow women’s rights activists. Now the 26-year-old economics graduate must operate clandestinely, dressing in disguise and only demonstrating with a select few.

“If things continue like this, there will be no future for women in Afghanistan. It’s better if the future never arrives,” says Reshmin, who spoke to the Guardian using only her first name, which means “silk” in Farsi, out of security concerns. “Each time we go out, we say farewell because we might not make it back alive.”

Continue reading...

UK falling behind most G7 countries in sharing Covid vaccines, figures show

Posted on by

Campaigners call for action after analysis finds only third of jabs pledged to poorer countries this year have so far been delivered

The UK is lagging behind other G7 countries in sharing surplus Covid vaccines with poorer countries, according to newly published figures.

The advocacy organisation One, which is campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030, described it as shaming for the UK government.

Continue reading...

Poorest countries to gain from new climate funding plan to break Cop26 impasse

Posted on by

Climate finance plan needed to gain backing of developing nations for any deal at Glasgow talks

The world’s poorest countries are set to benefit from a new climate funding plan to help them cope with the impacts of climate breakdown, in an effort to break the impasse between developed and developing countries at the UN Cop26 climate summit

The UK government, as Cop26 host, will unveil the proposals on Monday along with ministers from Germany and Canada, who have been charged with drawing up a plan for climate finance, needed to gain the backing of scores of developing countries for any deal at the talks, which open in Glasgow next Sunday.

Continue reading...

Assad regime ‘siphons millions in aid’ by manipulating Syria’s currency

Posted on by

Government pocketed half of donations in 2020 as central bank forced UN agencies to use lower exchange rate


The Syrian government is siphoning off millions of dollars of foreign aid by forcing UN agencies to use a lower exchange rate, according to new research.

The Central Bank of Syria, which is sanctioned by the UK, US and EU, in effect made $60m (£44m) in 2020 by pocketing $0.51 of every aid dollar sent to Syria, making UN contracts one of the biggest money-making avenues for President Bashar al-Assad and his government, researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Operations & Policy Center thinktank and the Center for Operational Analysis and Research found.

Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak to save billions by counting IMF cash as aid for poor

Posted on by

Exclusive: chancellor criticised by former Tory international development secretaries for planned use of $27.4bn windfall

Rishi Sunak is to save billions of pounds by counting as aid financial assistance to poor countries being provided as a result of a windfall Britain has received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a move that has been condemned by former Conservative international development secretaries, the chancellor has chosen not to use the UK’s share of a new $650bn IMF global fighting fund to increase the share of national output spent on aid.

Continue reading...

Zimbabwean who cleared Falklands mines urges rethink on 75% cut to clearance programmes

Posted on by

Cuthbert Mutukwa fears disastrous consequences for home country if UK cuts go ahead as it nears ‘mine-free’ status

A Zimbabwean man who helped clear hundreds of landmines from the Falkland Islands has urged Britain not to go ahead with cuts that would see the government pull funding from his home country just as it nears “mine-free” status.

Cuthbert Mutukwa, 42, left his family in Zimbabwe to work for two years de-mining the Falkland Islands, the British overseas territory that was peppered with about 13,000 mines by Argentinian forces during the 1982 war.

Continue reading...

Ethiopia expels ‘meddling’ UN staff as famine deepens in Tigray without aid

Posted on by

Seven senior officials responsible for ‘delivering lifesaving aid’ told to leave amid de facto blockade of food, medicine and fuel

The Ethiopian government has told seven senior UN officials to leave the country, accusing them of “meddling in internal affairs”.

A statement from the foreign ministry said the officials – who include staff from the UN humanitarian agency, the UN human rights office and the children’s agency, Unicef – must leave Ethiopia within 72 hours.

Continue reading...