Category Archives: Aid

‘They don’t come for us’: Haitians face agonising wait for help after quake

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People in need of water, food and shelter are fending for themselves as aid response complicated by heavy rain, gangs and distrust of international agencies

On the morning a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Haiti, Jackson Mason, a barber, was picking up water and other shopping from Cavaillon’s bustling market.

“The earth below me started to shake – people were thrown into the air, others yelled, praying to Jesus to save them,” Mason, 35, says. “Everything flew in the air, even the wallets in people’s hands.”

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‘Use your £11bn climate fund to pay for family planning,’ UK told

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More than 60 NGOs call for spending rule change, saying people on frontline of climate crisis want greater access to reproductive healthcare

The UK government has been urged to open up its £11bn pot of climate funding to contraception, as research from low-income countries shows a link between poor access to reproductive health services and environmental damage.

In a letter to Alok Sharma, president of the UN Cop26 climate conference, an alliance of more than 60 NGOs has called for the funding eligibility rules to be changed to allow projects concerned with removing barriers to reproductive healthcare and girls’ education to access climate funds.

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Haiti earthquake 10 days on: survivors still ‘hungry and thirsty’ – video report

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The death toll is still rising 10 days after a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Haiti on the morning of 14 August. More than 2,200 deaths have been recorded so far, while at least 30,000 families have had to abandon their homes. Many were sleeping on the streets when Tropical Storm Grace struck two days later, bringing high winds and pelting rain. But despite the hardship, many Haitians are wary of the massive international aid response that is under way

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Haiti needs help, but ‘not from aid workers who never leave their SUVs’

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Beset by earthquakes, poverty and gang violence, the country is desperate for aid. However it must be the right kind, say locals

The death toll is still rising 10 days after a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Haiti on the morning of 14 August, levelling much of Les Cayes and the surrounding region.

More than 2,200 deaths have been recorded so far, while at least 30,000 families have had to abandon their homes. Many were sleeping on the streets when Tropical Storm Grace struck two days later, bringing high winds and pelting rain.

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Afghanistan could start to run out of food by September, UN warns

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World Food Programme calls for urgent aid as chaos of Taliban takeover and second drought in three years create dire humanitarian situation

UN agencies have warned of food shortages to Afghanistan as early as September without urgent aid funding, as it emerged first aid supplies, including surgical equipment and severe malnutrition kits, were stuck due to restrictions at Kabul airport.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the closure of the airport to commercial flights has held up key deliveries.

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‘Devastating’: how UK’s foreign aid cuts could hurt the world’s poorest

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Data analysis highlights the human cost if thousands of overseas projects lose funding

Experts have warned of “devastating” consequences of the UK’s foreign aid cuts after Guardian analysis revealed the UK is cutting funding at a time when major recipient countries are at risk of becoming more politically unstable.

Thousands of activities providing life-saving support are being cut due to the government’s decision to reduce aid spending to 0.5% of gross national income.

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

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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?

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

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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”.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Ethiopia suspends aid groups for ‘spreading misinformation’

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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.

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Refugees hit hardest as deadly floods sweep across continents

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Aid is not helping development in Tanzania | Letter

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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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Almost one in three globally go hungry during pandemic – UN

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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.

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

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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.

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