Category Archives: Aid

UK wrestles with effects of Taliban rule on terror, drugs and aid

Posted on by

Analysis: whether Britain should recognise Afghanistan’s new regime, and how soon, is a fraught question for officials

With the Taliban now firmly in control of most of Afghanistan, British government figures have been wrestling with what that means for everything from counter-terrorism to the drugs trade and aid.

How soon should Britain’s battlefield foes be recognised as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan? What attitude should the UK take to the burgeoning resistance coalescing around former Afghan government figures as the threat of renewed civil war looms?

Continue reading...

Africa’s park tourism crash is a wake-up call. Can we find new ways to finance conservation? | Peter Muiruri

Posted on by

As Covid continues to curb visits to see our iconic wildlife, now is the time to move away from western-led funding models

That African governments have failed to mobilise funds to conserve their vast protected areas is not in doubt. Countries were just about managing to pay basic salaries to rangers who barely had enough to put fuel in their patrol vehicles. Covid has exacerbated this already dire situation, with the loss of income from foreign tourism.

The continent has more than 8,500 protected areas, described by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as government-led national parks, areas jointly governed by state agencies, communities, privately owned wildlife reserves, and public-private partnerships between governments, companies and NGOs. Included too, are what the IUCN calls “indigenous peoples and communities conserved territories and areas”.

Continue reading...

How a lone aid worker in Gaza ended up on trial for the largest theft of aid money in history

Posted on by

Mohammed El Halabi is accused of stealing relief money and giving it to Hamas for their war effort against Israel. But five years on, the evidence against him looks seriously flawed

At about 9am on 12 July 2016, dozens of Israeli security officers stormed through the gates of the Augusta Victoria hospital complex in East Jerusalem. They surged past the hospital, which mostly serves the local Palestinian population, and through the main car park to a three-storey building where the offices of the international charity World Vision were located.

The officers, some armed with rifles, ordered the charity’s few dozen staff into a meeting room and seized their phones to prevent them contacting the outside world. According to witnesses, they were kept there for the next four hours. Occasionally, Israeli police and intelligence agents called an employee out of the room for questioning, while others roamed the offices, searching through files.

Continue reading...

‘A sample of hell’: Rohingya forced to rebuild camps again after deadly floods

Posted on by

At least 21,000 refugees displaced after heavy rain devastates Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the latest in a series of disasters to hit the area

The process of rebuilding has begun once again for Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh after a week of heavy rains made thousands homeless.

The chest-high waters that flowed through parts of Cox’s Bazar have exposed the vulnerability of the area’s unplanned settlements, which have to be repeatedly repaired and rebuilt after flooding, cyclones and fires.

Continue reading...

Ethiopia suspends aid groups for ‘spreading misinformation’

Posted on by

Médecins Sans Frontières and Norwegian Refugee Council, active in war-torn Tigray, in talks over ban

The Ethiopian government has suspended the work of two international aid organisations for three months, including in the conflict-hit Tigray region, accusing them of spreading misinformation.

Ethiopia Current Issues Fact Check, a government-run website focused on Tigray, accused Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) of violating several rules.

Continue reading...

Refugees hit hardest as deadly floods sweep across continents

Posted on by

Death toll rises as storms continue to rip through communities, destroying homes and livelihoods

As heavy rains and floods dominate headlines around the world, displaced people and those living in conflict zones are among the worst affected.

Wind and heavy rain from monsoons and typhoons has bombarded much of Asia. There have also been downpours and flash floods in parts of Latin America and Africa.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Arab democracies: the least worst option | Editorial

Posted on by

Benevolent dictatorship is not the answer to the region’s real problems

This week has shown that Arab regimes are tough on dissent, but much less interested in its causes. This will create problems for years to come as these states struggle to recover from the pandemic. Tunisia’s presidential power grab is a test for Joe Biden’s democracy and human rights agenda. War has impoverished ancient centres of Arab civilisation. The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia this week pointed out that poverty now affects 88% of the population in Syria and 83% in Yemen. Even nations once considered wealthy have been brought low by an unhappy meeting of leadership failures and Covid-19. Lebanon’s leaders are begging for foreign assistance after the local currency plummeted in value and the population ran short of food, fuel and medicine.

The Arab world is a varied place. The latest UN survey shows it diverging into wealthy Gulf absolute monarchies; a set of middle-income countries with more people than their oil reserves can comfortably afford; war zones in some of the largest nations such as Iraq; and very poor states. The oil-rich sheikhdoms are pulling ahead and using their financial and military clout to extend their influence, often with disastrous results. The Arab region, says the UN, hosts more than six million refugees and more than 11 million internally displaced persons. There is little coordinated action to deal with the numerous social challenges, including growing poverty, increased unemployment and persistent gender inequalities. Food insecurity has spread. One can be too downcast: the UN hopes for a silver lining in the prospect of peace in Libya.

Continue reading...

Aid cuts make a mockery of UK pledges on girls’ education | Zoe Williams

Posted on by

The government’s words at the global education summit are completely at odds with its behaviour. Whatever the event achieves will be despite its UK hosts, not because of them

With all the fanfare Covid would allow, the global education summit opened in London this week. Ahead of the meeting, the minister for European neighbourhood and the Americas was on rousing form. “Educating girls is a gamechanger,” Wendy Morton said, going on to describe what a plan would look like to do just that.

The UK, co-hosting the summit with Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, plans to raise funds for the Global Partnership for Education, from governments and donors. The UK government has promised £430m over the next five years.

Continue reading...

Aid is not helping development in Tanzania | Letter

Posted on by

The country is one of the largest recipients of western aid, and yet poverty and unemployment remain rife, write two healthcare professionals

In response to Benny Dembitzer’s letter (20 July), we are currently working in Tanzania, one of the largest recipients of western aid in the world. We are doing research with the Hadza people, investigating the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in that population. In comparison to our observations from 2018, it appears that very little development has occurred in Tanzania. If anything, Tanzanians appear to be poorer and there appears to be more unemployed people now, which, given the challenges of Covid, is even more worrying. This highlights that the current aid model is not fit for purpose and western governments should rethink the way they support Tanzania and other countries urgently.

In the medical field, we are finding that progress has been halted, and probably reversed. One of the causes is that the rich world takes so many doctors, nurses and other health professionals from the developing world. Countries such as Tanzania have educated these professionals at their expense. We collect the ripe fruits.
Dennis Ougrin and Emma Woodhouse
London

Continue reading...

Offering aid without development is costing lives in the global south | Letter

Posted on by

The west is acting like the empires of old and failing to help poor people stand on their own two feet, says Benny Dembitzer

The debate in the Guardian (Outrage aimed at No 10 as MPs back £4bn cut to foreign aid budget, 13 July; Letters, 15 July) over the past few days has only contributed to the continuation of a fundamental error that is literally costing millions of lives in the global south. None of the politicians or correspondents who have intervened in the discussions have emphasised the profound conflict between aid and development. The two are usually presented as synonymous – they are not.

Because we have nurtured very little development to enable poor people in poor countries to stand on their own two feet, we have had to give them more aid. We have not helped them develop their own agency. We have not enabled them to develop agriculture to meet their own needs, encouraged governments to undertake land reform, educated women farmers, facilitated local seed multiplication or created local agricultural colleges.

Continue reading...

Guns, gangs and ‘bad aid’: Haiti’s crisis reaches full throttle

Posted on by

Incessant foreign meddling and corrupt elites have ensured life for Haitians remains mired in violence and poverty. President Moïse’s assassination marks an escalating catastrophe

The Haitian political activist Marie Antoinette Duclair appears to have been unaware that two men on a motorbike were following her car through the badly lit streets of Port-au-Prince.

Her passenger on the night of 29 June was a journalist, Diego Charles. They had been attending a meeting, and she was now, at 11 o’clock at night, dropping him at his home in the Christ-Roi area of Haiti’s capital.

Continue reading...

Where UK aid cuts bite deepest – stories from the sharp end

Posted on by

As women and children lose out on programmes that could change their lives, Britain’s reputation has been diminished

Bukola Onyishi was delighted when she found out that the British government was going to help her realise a dream in one of the poorest parts of Nigeria. With a grant agreement that was meant to last for three years, she was finally going to be able to launch a female empowerment programme for the women of Bauchi state in the country’s north-east, many of whom had fled the militant Islamist group Boko Haram and were now living in abject poverty in camps for the internally displaced.

“The grant made us very happy,” says Onyishi, country director for Women for Women International. “[Bauchi] was the right place to be.” Setting it up was not easy: Onyishi and her colleagues had a job to persuade community elders of the project’s value, encountering deep-seated patriarchal beliefs that surprised even her in their obstinacy. But they came round in the end, and the first 12-month empowerment programme began, teaching 1,200 carefully selected women about everything from their basic human rights to numeracy and business skills.

Continue reading...

Almost one in three globally go hungry during pandemic – UN

Posted on by

Big leap in malnutrition during Covid, with fifth of children now believed to be stunted, report warns

The number of people who did not have enough food to eat rose steeply during the Covid-19 pandemic to include almost a third of the world, according to a new UN report published on Monday.

Five UN agencies said the number of people without access to healthy diets grew by 320 million last year to nearly 2.37 billion people– more than the increases in the previous five years combined.

Continue reading...

Global philanthropists pledge £94m to cover UK foreign aid cuts

Posted on by

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among organisations picking up some of bill for health projects

A group of global philanthropists, including Bill Gates, have pledged £93.5m to help cover the shortfall left by the UK government’s cuts to foreign aid.

After the government cut funding by about a third in the autumn spending review, many “critical” projects have stalled or been put at risk.

Continue reading...

‘It will be a catastrophe’: fate of Syria’s last aid channel rests in Russia’s hands

Posted on by

Possible veto of Bab al-Hawa UN aid crossing could halt the flow of vital food and health supplies to 3.4 million people

Just over half a mile away from the Bab al-Hawa border crossing connecting Syria and Turkey a 6th-century triumphal arch still stands, the remains of a Roman road stretching straight as an arrow on either side. For millennia this part of the world has been a crossroads of trade, culture and history. Today, it’s more important than ever.

Bab al-Hawa is Syria’s last lifeline, through which vital UN aid supplies for 3.4 million people living in the war-torn north-west of the country arrive. But before 10 July, the security council must vote in New York on whether to keep the aid flowing. What might seem like an obvious decision to outsiders is actually far from certain: Russia may use its veto power as a permanent member of the council to close the UN’s last access point, as it has managed to do with the other three aid crossings.

Continue reading...

Major aid donors found to have funded ‘conversion therapy’ clinics in Africa

Posted on by

Investigation finds UK Aid and USAid money linked to centres where ‘condemned’ practice is routinely offered to LGBTQ+ people

The UK government is among major aid donors to have funded clinics in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania that offer so-called “conversion therapies”, which pressurise gay people to “quit” same-sex attraction, an investigation has found.

In a six-month undercover investigation of the centres, reporters from global news website openDemocracy were told being gay is “evil”, “for whites” and a mental health problem. Among them were facilities linked to some of the world’s biggest aid donors, including USAid and the British government’s fund, UK Aid, run by organisations such as UK-based MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and Swiss-based Global Fund.

Continue reading...

Tigray ceasefire: aid workers demand telecoms be restored

Posted on by

Lack of phone and internet hampering humanitarian efforts in war-torn Ethiopian province, UN warns

Humanitarian organisations in Ethiopia are demanding that phone lines and internet are restored to the troubled northern province of Tigray, warning that the ceasefire declared by Addis Ababa this week will only help alleviate famine if aid workers can operate safely.

Since the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) withdrew from Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, on Monday, all telecommunications have been down, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Unicef said ENDF personnel had entered its office and dismantled crucial satellite equipment.

Continue reading...

Forget GDP, ‘vulnerability index best gauges aid’ to small islands

Posted on by

Commonwealth research says UVI is better measure of small island states’ aid needs, especially on climate

Small island nations on the climate crisis frontlines have been overlooked in overseas aid, according to a new index.

Urging a move away from the current benchmark of using gross domestic product (GDP) to measure aid allocation, researchers from the Commonwealth secretariat and the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (Ferdi), a French thinktank, have developed the universal vulnerability index (UVI) as an alternative. GDP, they claim, fails to reflect the realities nations face, particularly on climate.

Continue reading...

Three aid workers found dead in Tigray, says Médecins Sans Frontières

Posted on by

MSF says it condemns attack on colleagues ‘in strongest possible terms’ after bodies found near car

Three aid workers who had been working in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have bee found dead, their organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières, announced on Friday.

MSF said it had lost contact with the workers while they were traveling on Thursday afternoon. Their bodies were found near their empty car this morning.

Continue reading...

UK aid cuts imposed with no transparency, says watchdog

Posted on by

Icai review cites lack of access to officials and papers to assess aid budget since Foreign Office-DfID merger

UK aid cuts have been imposed with inadequate transparency, according to an independent watchdog, which said it was becoming increasingly difficult to interact with the government.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai), a public body that reports to parliament, said the lack of cooperation, partly due to the disruption of aid cuts, has meant it was unable even to assess whether recommendations it had previously made had been followed.

Continue reading...