Category Archives: Aid

Aid agencies raise alarm as solo children cross Chad border to flee Sudan fighting

Posted on by

Unicef says ‘more and more unaccompanied children’ among thousands of refugees streaming across 1,000km-long border

Hundreds of unaccompanied children have crossed the border from Sudan into Chad in recent weeks as fighting separates families and forces minors to make the arduous journey to safety without their parents.

Humanitarian workers say “more and more” children are arriving alone in the neighbouring country, to which more than 100,000 refugees, about 60% of them under-18s, have fled since fighting erupted between rival military factions in mid-April.

Continue reading...

Food aid suspended in Ethiopia after ‘widespread and coordinated’ thievery

Posted on by

UN and US halt food assistance in the country, where 20 million people rely on aid, in order to investigate ‘diversion’ of supplies

Food aid to Ethiopia has been suspended after the discovery that humanitarian supplies meant for people in need were being stolen.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it is halting food assistance while it rolled out “enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people”. It comes a day after the US Agency for International Development (USAid) said it was doing the same, after a “countrywide review” uncovered “a widespread and coordinated campaign” that was diverting food assistance from Ethiopian people.

Continue reading...

UK government under fire for investing overseas aid in fossil fuel firms

Posted on by

Taxpayer’s money also going to companies found to be flouting human rights in Kenya and DRC, says Commons committee

The UK government is under attack for investing taxpayers’ money in fossil fuel companies, a hospital in Kenya accused of imprisoning patients who couldn’t pay for treatment, and a business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that exposed workers to dangerous chemicals and dumped untreated industrial waste.

MPs questioned the investments at a two-hour session in parliament on Tuesday, and excoriated Andrew Mitchell, minister for development, for making overseas aid available to a company owned by Africa’s richest man that is suspected of causing serious environmental damage.

Continue reading...

UK funding cuts to east Africa ‘insulting and shortsighted’, say aid organisations

Posted on by

NGOs dismayed at reduction in Britain’s contribution as crisis-hit region faces challenges from drought, rising prices and conflict

The UK has been accused of taking the “insulting and shortsighted” decision to cut humanitarian aid to east Africa at a time of chronic drought, conflict and rising food prices.

At a United Nations pledging conference in New York on Wednesday, which the UK is co-chairing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development minister, announced a humanitarian aid package to the region of £143m.

Continue reading...

Race against time to stop ‘humanitarian disaster’ among Sudan refugees in Chad

Posted on by

Coming rainy season threatens 80,000 living in ‘heartbreaking’ conditions in vulnerable border region after fleeing war at home

Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, who have crossed the border into Chad risk a “major humanitarian disaster” when the rainy season begins within weeks, a Red Cross official has warned.

About 80,000 people have sought refuge in the country to the west of Sudan as weeks of fighting between two warring generals forces hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Continue reading...

Aid agencies in Sudan plead with factions to allow supplies to reach needy

Posted on by

Six trucks of humanitarian supplies looted while airstrikes in Khartoum undermine ceasefire

Aid agencies are pleading with battling factions in Sudan to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the needy, after six trucks of humanitarian supplies were looted and airstrikes in Khartoum undermined a new ceasefire.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said on Wednesday he was seeking assurances that would allow for movement of staff and supplies.

Continue reading...

UK government funding anti-LGBTQ+ organisation in Uganda, says report

Posted on by

The Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, which is openly homophobic, is a direct recipient of UK aid money

The UK government is helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence, a report has found.

Analysing official data given to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the report by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found a “staggering” number of connections between anti-LGBTQ+ organisations in Uganda and international aid donors, including the UK.

Continue reading...

Humanitarian aid ‘impossible’ as fighting in Sudan traps millions

Posted on by

Hopes of 24-hour ceasefire to evacuate civilians and wounded after US secretary of state intervenes

Fighting continued in Sudan hours after an internationally brokered truce was supposed to have come into effect, as forces loyal to dueling generals battled for key locations in the capital and accused each other of violating the cease-fire.

At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in more than four days of fighting that has pitted army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing sovereign council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council. Their power struggle has derailed a shift to civilian rule and raised fears of a wider conflict.

Continue reading...

UN ready for ‘heartbreaking’ decision to pull out of Afghanistan

Posted on by

Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation

The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.

The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.

Continue reading...

IMF calls for ‘another Gleneagles moment’ on debt relief and aid

Posted on by

Package similar to 2005 deal needed as struggling African countries suffer severe funding squeeze, says official

Western countries need to put together a debt relief and aid package to match that of the landmark Gleneagles summit deal in 2005 in order to counter a severe funding squeeze affecting struggling African countries, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Abebe Selassie, the director of the IMF’s African department, said without a scaling up of financial support some of the world’s poorest countries would have no chance of meeting the 2030 UN goals for poverty reduction.

Continue reading...

Britain spends three times more aid on housing refugees than it sends to Africa

Posted on by

Foreign Office figures show aid to Africa fell to £1.1bn in 2022, compared with £3.7bn of budget spent on refugees in UK

The UK spent more than three times its overseas aid budget on housing refugees in Britain than on helping to alleviate poverty in Africa in 2022, figures from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show.

The official provisional figures for 2022 show that spending on refugees increased from £597m in 2020 to £1bn in 2021 and reached £3.7bn in 2022. No other major country in the world is cutting its mainstream aid budget to cover the cost of housing refugees in this way, said the aid campaign group Bond.

Continue reading...

Vast Aukus spending sparks calls to boost Australia’s aid budget

Posted on by

Country gives just $1 in assistance for every $10 that goes to defence, humanitarian groups say

The huge Aukus price tag has sparked calls to boost aid funding, with the sector lobbying the Australian government not to dismiss such measures as an optional “luxury”.

The nuclear-powered submarine program is forecast to cost between $268bn and $368bn by the mid 2050s, most of it beyond the first four-year budget period.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Haiti faces ‘hunger emergency’ amid escalating gang violence and surging inflation

Posted on by

Acute hunger is affecting 4.9 million Haitians, according to a UN report, which outlines the increased need for humanitarian aid

Haitians are increasingly desperate for humanitarian aid as gang violence engulfing the country has left nearly half the population regularly going hungry, a World Food Programme (WFP) report has found.

“These are the worst conditions on record,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP’s Haiti director. “Food insecurity in Haiti has been going downhill and Haiti is sliding into a hunger emergency.”

Continue reading...

UK aid cuts could force closure of Afghan project supporting women and girls

Posted on by

Slashing funding to the programme from a promised £7m to just £1m sends a ‘stark message to the world’, says Save the Children

The UK government has cut almost £6m in funding to a programme in Afghanistan supporting vulnerable women and girls.

Save the Children said it has been told by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that it will receive just over £1m of a promised £7m to support more than 100,000 people to access essential basic services such as healthcare and education.

Continue reading...

UK aid to India does little for human rights and democracy, watchdog finds

Posted on by

Programme spent £2.7bn between 2016 and 2021 but is fragmented and lacks a clear rationale, report says

Britain’s aid programme to India is fragmented, lacks a clear rationale and does little to counter the negative trends in human rights and democracy in the country, the government’s aid watchdog has found.

The findings are likely to be used by those who claim the UK government risks using its aid programme to deepen its relationship with India, including seeking free trade deals, rather than attempting to reduce poverty, which is the statutory purpose of UK aid.

Continue reading...

Christian Aid claims it was subject to act of ‘lawfare’ by pro-Israel group

Posted on by

The charity was taken to court for its work in the Middle East by the US body, whose director justifies litigation against NGOs that ‘cross the line’

A leading NGO has broken its silence on a bruising legal battle with a pro-Israeli advocacy group, describing it as an act of “lawfare” aimed at inflicting financial and reputational damage on organisations that do charitable work with Palestinians.

Christian Aid, the UK-based charity, was forced to spend about £700,000 defending itself against accusations that it had provided “material support” to terrorists, chief executive Patrick Watt has said.

Continue reading...

UN raises $1.2bn from donors towards $4.3bn Yemen aid plan

Posted on by

Number falls well short of target to respond to one of world’s biggest humanitarian disasters

The United Nations has raised about $1.2bn (£996m) from crisis-strained donors towards its $4.3bn aid plan for Yemen, one of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters despite a no-war, no-peace stalemate that has largely stopped fighting.

Underfunding has seen agencies scale back Yemen aid projects, including food rations, in the past couple of years. Last year donors gave $2.2bn of the $4.27bn sought, UN data shows.

Continue reading...

UN warns of ‘unconscionable’ cuts to Rohingya food rations as donations fall

Posted on by

World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%

The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts.

Continue reading...

Ikea Foundation sends shelters to Syria and Turkey as firms offer earthquake aid

Posted on by

First relief housing units arrive in Hatay province, Amazon sends food and blankets and Allianz donates €6m

The Ikea Foundation has sent 5,000 flatpack shelters to southern Turkey and northern Syria to house people left homeless by the earthquake last week, as companies around the world pledge help.

The Swedish homeware multinational’s philanthropy arm said on Tuesday it had donated €10m (£8.8m) to the NGO Better Shelter, with which it developed the robust, award-winning 17.5 sq metre shelters that fit in two boxes and can be assembled without tools.

Continue reading...

Syria’s Assad agrees to open two more entry points for aid to earthquake victims

Posted on by

UN announces regime leader’s acceptance of border crossing points for humanitarian aid to reach rebel-held province

The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, has agreed to open two border crossing points to allow in a greater volume of emergency aid for victims of the earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, and killed 36,000 people.

Assad’s decision was announced and welcomed by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who said the two crossing points between Turkey and north-west Syria, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, would be open “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid”.

Continue reading...