Information and stories about aid effectiveness and reform

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5 Ways to Ensure Effective Health Aid Dispersal

Health AidNot all aid is created equal. In the fight against global poverty, ensuring sufficient funds for aid programs is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring that aid is results-oriented, transparent, expedient and cost-effective.

During the second High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Paris in 2005, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries formulated the Paris Declaration. This declaration was meant to set benchmarks for how to measure the five key categories of effective aid: ownership, alignment, harmonization, results and mutual accountability.

While these five categories are intended to measure the effectiveness of all kinds of aid, they are particularly pertinent to health aid. Developing public health infrastructure in poorer countries is the “gift that keeps on giving,” ideally continuing to serve local populations well after aid has ceased. Thus, a robust public health outcome is an ideal metric to judge the quality of aid using the five categories of the Paris Declaration.

1. Ownership

Ownership, according to the Paris Declaration, involves partner countries exercising “effective leadership over their development policies and strategies.” This category is a measurement of how much aid recipients are involved in developing and executing programs that actually take advantage of the aid they are receiving. Aid strategies have traditionally assumed that once a country reaches middle-income status, it will have sufficient resources and self-interest to invest in public health, but unfortunately, this is not always the case.

For example, Nigeria is technically a middle-income country, but it spends less on public health than Rwanda, which a low-income country. Health aid can really only be considered effective if countries take ownership of health programs that outlive donor support as the country transitions into middle-income status.

Ownership is especially important given a recent estimate by the World Health Organization that predicts that in the next few decades, there will be a global health workforce shortage of up to 12.9 million. Aid programs need to ensure that recipients are developing adequate long-term strategies, especially when it comes to investing in health training and education.

2. Alignment

The dimension of alignment measures how well aid matches up with recipient strategies for dispersal and development. Development experts often criticize “tied” aid. This is aid that is contingent on the recipient procuring health products from the donor country, using their distribution infrastructure, employing foreign personnel or involving some other condition which is often not the most cost-effective or desirable for the recipient. Alignment essentially means “untying” aid to make sure that it aligns closely with the national development strategy of the recipient country.

A topical example of the alignment of health aid in the Global Food Security Act of 2015. This bill, currently introduced to the House and awaiting consideration, encourages local procurement of food aid for U.S. aid programs (among other things). Traditionally, food aid dispersal from the U.S. has been tied, requiring that a certain percentage of that aid be procured from the U.S. and dispersed using the U.S. merchant marine.

However, this bill seeks to do away with those requirements and favors recipient-country producers. This encourages the growth of local agriculture and health aid infrastructure, rather than out-competing them. Additionally, local procurement is faster, and in the event of a humanitarian emergency, recipient populations would not have to wait as long for foreign aid to reach them.

3. Harmonization

Harmonization involves cutting down on the plurality of programs that may have the same goal yet interfere and undermine each other. An aid recipient country may be host to dozens of organizations or programs that target public health outcomes yet do not communicate with each other, thus creating redundancies or inefficiency.

Harmonization is especially critical to public health, more so in emergencies. Currently, there is no standard system whereby donors can track and share how much and to where health aid is going, making it difficult to determine where it is most needed. The recent Ebola epidemic was a particularly disastrous indication of the need for better logistics and donor coordination; it is difficult to tell if health aid has even reached a recipient population, much less if it is redundant, or necessary.

4. Results

Just as it is important to harmonize aid efforts, tracking the progress of health programs has also been an ongoing challenge for donors and recipients. Health aid, despite good intentions, can be totally ineffective when it isn’t results-oriented. Tracking public health outcomes generally involves better data collection and census practices, which can be incredibly difficult to implement in developing countries that lack basic infrastructure.

Very recently, the Girls Count Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. This act directs the Secretary of State as well as the United States Agency for International Aid and Development (USAID) to work with developing countries to build adequate civil registration systems as well as create economic and social policies that are deliberately inclusive of women and girls. The idea is that better demographic data and inclusive policy can help traditionally marginalized populations (such as women) take advantage of existing social safety nets. Additionally, better demographic data would lead to more effective health aid, as donors often lack access to accurate census information and thus may be unaware of vulnerable populations, or unable to determine the impact of aid.

5. Mutual Accountability

The final category calls for recipients and donors to exercise “mutual accountability and transparency in the use of development resources.” This emphasis on accountability stems from a history of aid inefficiencies due to a lack of transparency, or even outright corruption in recipient countries. For example, millions of dollars in aid money were simply pocketed by corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Republic of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) during the ’70s and ’80s.

Conversely, donor countries must be transparent about where aid flows are going in order to provide recipient countries (as well as other donors) with accurate information they can present to their citizens. In general, developing genuine partnerships between donors and recipients is crucial in ensuring that resulting health and development programs are effective and long-lasting.

– Derek Marion

Sources: Reuters, Devex, Partners in Health, OECD
Photo: OECD

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Action/2015 Progress by Month

action_2015
For Action/2015, “This is our year.” The coalition of more than 1,950 organizations worldwide is carving a brighter future in order to make 2015 the year of action and change. The agenda includes tackling climate change, poverty, and inequality, and so far, Action/2015 made substantial progress through key campaigning and advocacy events.

January
Action/2015 launch:
On January 15, 2015, Action/2015 launched campaigns all over the world from Mali, Mexico, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and the UK to name a few. Twitter helped spread #Action2015 to millions of people.

March
International Women’s Day:
On March 8, 2015, the coalition held street marches and rallies around the work in support of women’s rights. They could be spotted from the UK, Nicaragua, Spain, Ecuador, New York City, Bangladesh, Spain, and South Africa.

April
Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day:
The coalition mobilized its campaign via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, in order to address the annual spring meeting of the World Bank held in Washington D.C. #Hero, addressed the world’s Finance Ministers to fund poverty reduction projects such as the Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Goals.

May
Throughout the month, Action/2015 campaigned to pressure world leaders attending the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goal Summit in September and the COP21 climate negotiations in December. More than 22 million advocates in 150 countries held events to call for change. In Kenya, the President responsively agreed to a 12 percent pay increase for workers.

May’s Days of Actions guided support through various themes of change. May 1 was Yes to Labour Rights, No to Social Exclusion Day, and May 13 was Poverty is Sexist Day. Among more, these days calling for global action complemented other events like Citizen Heartings, community sports days, caravans, and concerts.

June
The G7 Summit was held on June 7-8 in Germany. The coalition played its part by taking to Twitter to stand #AgainstPoverty. Many participants were also a part of a free concert, United Against Poverty, also calling to the G7 leaders for greater attention to end poverty.

July
The Financing for Development was held on July 13-16 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Just before the conference, 4.8 million coalition events in 150 countries rallied to demand that world leaders “meet outstanding sending commitments, fight structural injustices of unfair tax, and many other issues.”

August
International Youth Day unleashed #YouthPower. Sri Lanka, South Africa, Brazil, and Benin hosted marches, workshops, political meetings, flash mobs in honor of the movement. The coalition offered guidance through the options to download from their website, International Youth Day toolkits, YouthPower Workshop plans, and contact the team for direct consultation.

September
The United Nations General Assembly will take place on September 15-28. The world’s most influential leaders will meet to conclude the Millennium Development Goals and create a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. The coalition is scheduling September 24 as a Global Day of Action for global mobilization.

November-December
From November 20 to December 11, Paris will host the UN Climate Change Conference. Action/2015 advocates will join around the globe to pressure their world leaders for stronger leadership and progress in poverty reduction.

– Lin Sabones

Sources: Action/2015 1, Action/2015 2, Action/2015 3, Action/2015 4, Action/2015 5, Action/2015 6, Action/2015 7, Action/2015 8, Action/2015 9, World Bank
Photo: Restless Development

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Charity Versus Chauvinism: Successful Working Methodology at BRAC

BRACAmidst the daily fight against global poverty levels, success stories arise from one of the world’s largest development charities. Recently awarded the World Food Prize for successfully pulling more than 150 million people in developing countries out of poor living conditions, Fazel Hasan Abed, founder of the Bangladeshi charity BRAC, seems to have stumbled upon a working methodology.

What makes this methodology different from other approaches can be found in the difference between chauvinism and charity. Chauvinistic approaches to world aid portray a very “hands-off” tactic, whereas charity clearly sets out to give direct help to those in need.

Many IGOs are now looking to out-source the BRAC method. This method utilizes a short amount of time, 24 months, and a high amount of pressure on developing communities in order to produce the greatest results.

The first step is to determine the target individuals of aid by looking at the “determinants of poverty” – little to no healthcare availability, no livelihood skills or capital, low self-esteem and illiteracy, as well as social exclusion. This is done through “participatory wealth ranking,” which directly engages the community.

Next, the individuals are provided with adequate resources and taught fundamentals through “asset grants.” Fundamentals include different livelihood skills and literacy abilities, such as being able to write his or her name for the first time.

The last tactic is monitoring. Arguably, this demonstrates the importance of such a hands-on approach and in fact is referred to as the “hand-holding” step. Progress is closely supervised. For two years the individuals receive direct assistance and have proven that these individuals are able to maintain a better quality of life over the next four years after they “graduate” the BRAC system.

While this methodology might seem a “brute force approach” concerning its direct and hands-on elements, it proves to be the most effective. BRAC is smart, efficient, and proven to work. It targets the “ultra-poor” specifically, sets goals and drives the ball home until the individuals have successfully been pulled out of poor living conditions.

– Felicia L. Warren

Sources: The Guardian
Photo: Flickr

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Foreign Aid Investments Save Over 30 Million Children

Foreign_Aid_Investments
The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, the top international agency for global health data collection and analysis, has provided a new report which scores the impact of foreign aid investments made over the past fifteen years.

The study, recently published in the Lancet Medical Journal, determined that between 2000 and 2014, low and middle-income nations invested $133 billion US into child health initiatives. These investments are estimated to have saved the lives of 20 million infants and children.

An additional $73.6 billion US of foreign aid investments provided by donors, both governmental and privatized, accounted for the saving of an additional 14 million infant and child lives, the IHME estimates.

In total, an estimated 34 million children’s lives have been saved in the past 15 years. The report estimates that US foreign aid investments saved the largest number of children under-five, with 3.3 million lives saved. The UK was also noted as a significant factor in this progress and is estimated to have saved 1.7 million lives through their own development funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation proved to be the largest privatized donor, having saved an estimated 1.5 million lives.

Ray Chambers, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals and Malaria, collaborated with the IHME to produce this report and hopes to use this form of analysis in the future to track the success of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Chambers stated in an interview about the new score, “We know that despite the efforts of governments and donors to improve health in low-income and middle-income countries, too many children die before the age of five. Without a way to monitor and publicly share progress regularly, we will miss the opportunity to build on the momentum we have seen since the millennium declaration.”

The IHME estimates that within the most impoverished nations, the cost to save a child’s life is about $4,000 US. The organization stated in its report that within countries such as Tanzania and Haiti, the costs are $4,205. They estimate within nations such as Botswana and Thailand, where economies are more developed, that the costs to save a child’s life are above $10,000 US due to high health care costs.

The Director of the IHME, Dr. Christopher Murray, stated in a recent interview, “You can spend $4,000 on many different things, but there are very few places where the money would deliver the kind of impact you get by investing it in child health.” He continued in reasoning, “If you invest in the poorest countries, you will see the biggest impact in child health because the costs of things like nutrition programs, vaccines and primary care are lower.”

The report analyzed both governmental and privatized donors, and included internationally renowned agencies such the Global Fund, World Bank, UNICEF, USAID, and Gavi. The study concluded that the efforts and financial support of Gavi, a global non-profit organization focused on vaccination, has saved over 2.2 million lives.

Looking towards future development initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Dr. Murray has stressed, “We have seen such incredible success in saving children’s lives over the past 15 years. We need to take what we have learned from that experience and push for more progress and more accountability as we enter the era of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.” The Sustainable Development Goals were developed at the UN Rio+20 Conference in 2012, and are designed to build upon the progress of the Millennium Development Goals in the coming years.

– James Thornton

Sources: The Guardian, News Medical
Photo: Flickr

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Foreign Aid Investments Saved Over 30 Million Children’s Lives

foreign_aid
The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the top international agency for global health data collection and analysis, has provided a new report which scores the impact of foreign aid investments made over the past fifteen years.

The study, recently published in the Lancet Medical Journal, determined that between 2000 and 2014, low and middle-income nations invested $133 billion US into child health initiatives. These investments are estimated to have saved the lives of 20 million infants and children.

An additional $73.6 billion US of foreign aid investments provided by donors, both governmental and privatized, accounted for the saving of an additional 14 million infant and child lives, the IHME estimates.

In total, an estimated 34 million children’s lives have been saved in the past 15 years. The report estimates that US foreign aid investments saved the largest number of children under-five, with 3.3 million lives saved. The UK was also noted as a significant factor in this progress and is estimated to have saved 1.7 million lives through their own development funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation proved to be the largest privatized donor, having saved an estimated 1.5 million lives.

Ray Chambers, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals and Malaria, collaborated with the IHME to produce this report and hopes to use this form of analysis in the future to track the success of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Chambers said in an interview about the new score, “We know that despite the efforts of governments and donors to improve health in low-income and middle-income countries, too many children die before the age of five. Without a way to monitor and publicly share progress regularly, we will miss the opportunity to build on the momentum we have seen since the millennium declaration.”

The IHME estimates that within the most impoverished nations, the cost to save a child’s life is about $4,000 US. The organization stated in its report that within countries such as Tanzania and Haiti, the costs are $4,205. They estimate within nations such as Botswana and Thailand, where economies are more developed, that the costs to save a child’s life are above $10,000 US due to high health care costs.

The Director of the IHME, Dr. Christopher Murray, said in a recent interview, “You can spend $4,000 on many different things, but there are very few places where the money would deliver the kind of impact you get by investing it in child health.” He continued in reasoning, “If you invest in the poorest countries, you will see the biggest impact in child health because the costs of things like nutrition programmes, vaccines and primary care are lower.”

The report analyzed both governmental and privatized donors and included internationally renowned agencies such the Global Fund, World Bank, UNICEF, USAid and Gavi. The study concluded that the efforts and financial support of Gavi, a global non-profit organization focused on vaccination, has saved over 2.2 million lives.

Looking towards future development initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Dr. Murray said, “We have seen such incredible success in saving children’s lives over the past 15 years. We need to take what we have learned from that experience and push for more progress and more accountability as we enter the era of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.”

The Sustainable Development Goals were developed at the UN Rio+20 Conference in 2012 and are designed to build upon the progress of the Millennium Development Goals in the coming years.

– James Thornton

Sources: The Guardian, News-Medical
Photo: The Guardian

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US Representative Introduces the Electrify Africa Act 2015

electrify_africa_act_2015
On June 23, 2015, California Representative Ed Royce introduced an updated version of his “Electrify Africa Act” in hopes that, after a year of gaining attention, the bill would have more traction in 2015.

First introduced nearly two years earlier, H.R. 2847 (2014 version, H.R. 2548), known as the Electrify Africa Act, seeks “to encourage African countries to provide first-time access to electricity and power services for at least 50,000,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Though certain language has been rearranged and some bill descriptions altered between the years, both versions address the same goal: to have the U.S. Government establish policy to “partner, consult, and coordinate” with the governments of Sub-Saharan Africa and international agencies in order to provide reliable access to electricity.

Findings reported to Congress in the 2014 act showed that an estimated 68% of Sub-Saharan Africans lacked access to electricity as of 2010; with Africa’s rapid rate of population growth, this percentage is likely even higher today. At a minimum, first-time access to electricity must be provided to 50 million people in the region, some 10% of the estimated population lacking power.

Residents of Sub-Saharan Africa living without electricity are forced to use time-consuming and inefficient heating and cooking methods, such as using wood and dung for fuel. In addition to being time-consuming, the fuels utilized in these regions can produce toxic fumes, which, according to the report, cause nearly 3 million premature deaths due to respiratory disease each year.

The Electrify Africa Act of 2015 would establish a precedent in U.S. foreign policy to aid developing nations in creating and expanding their electrical infrastructure in a sustainable and effective way. Expansion of the electrical grid would reduce the prevalence of carbon-emitting and toxic materials being used for heating and cooking purposes, as well as reduce poverty by creating jobs, expanding entrepreneurial opportunities and lowering energy prices.

The bill further calls for a focus on expanding and promoting energy development strategies, including the use of renewable and cleaner energy sources as a way to build the overall economy by increasing investment across the region.

Electrify Africa 2014 (first introduced in June 2013) passed the U.S. House of Representatives with significant bipartisan support and a vote of 297 to 117. However, the bill stalled out once it hit the U.S. Senate floor, where it was read twice before being referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, as documented on Congress.gov.

The Electrify Africa Act 2015 has since been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where it awaits further action. Though the bill has garnered significant support in 2014, the 2015 version will need to raise the bar in order to make it all the way to the President in this legislative session.

– Gina Lehner

Sources: EAA 2014, EAA 2015
Photo: Huffington Post

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Financing Global Health

Financing_Global_Health

With the closing of the Millennium Development Goals window and various summits regarding foreign policy, international development and global health reform, the way that we fund many projects and initiatives is changing. The introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals, expected this fall, will redirect funds and call for new investment strategies.

The Development Goals outline specific targets for improving health worldwide, which facilitates investment for major donors. With the anticipated adoption of the lengthier Sustainable Development Goals, there is concern over whether or not the lack of a very specific, short list of aims could complicate and subsequently stall funding. The broader targets group things like communicable diseases together, where as in the past diseases had been separate goals. However, the past focus on specific individual diseases did give way for some unpredictability. For example, with such focus individual countries would oftentimes focus on specific diseases, so when a primary benefactor experienced some political or economic instability, so did the projects that they were funding. The introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals will shift funds from aims such as HIV/AIDS prevention, maternal mortality and child mortality, which typically receive the most aid, to new aims more focused on sustainability.

As we transition into more of a sustainability mindset, consideration of where the funds are coming from is increasingly important. In the past, the majority of funds in developing countries for development projects have come from foreign actors. If the aim of these goals, in the long-run, is sustainability, it would make sense that we would focus on helping these countries finance the projects domestically. This would involve continuing some financial aid, but also providing additional and extensive educational aid, to give people both the means and the tools to make sustainable changes to improve the health of their nations.

We will continue to see more collaboration on how to come at the new set of goals in terms of financing. One topic to be frequently discussed is how to use existing funds in more useful ways to minimize the additional capital needed to combat the updated list of health and development problems. Ways that can help include developing and disseminating tools, creating policies that minimize corruption and streamlining fund allocation specifically to targeted development projects. The new set of goals calls for in-depth analysis of past development financing and projects as well as development of new strategies and policies, so that the international development community can ease into the transition of alleviating the newly designated most pressing matters in the international community. Financing global health is truly a dynamic issue.

– Emma Dowd

Sources: Devex, Devex, Forbes, Humanosphere
Photo: World Affairs Council

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How USAID Is Falling Apart

USAID-Falling-Apart

The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, is the United States’ lead agency for international development and poverty reduction. The organization is credited with a multitude of successes, but in recent years it has faced organizational problems that have for the most part gone unnoticed by governmental higher-ups.

These organizational pitfalls threaten the agency’s ability to combat poverty and promote development worldwide. Recently, USAID has come under attack in the news for providing the wrong geographical coordinates for health centers that the agency funded in Afghanistan. A further look into the organization to find what internal problems are facilitating such mistakes revealed administrative and staffing discrepancies.

The USAID staff has become a major debilitating problem for the agency. There seems to be a rift between new and established staff members when there needs to be collaboration and unity among them. The veterans of the agency should be advising and teaching the newer members so that when they move on or retire, the staff remains steady and prepared. According to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, two-thirds of USAID’s professional staff has left. Over 50% of professionals still with the organization are over retirement age. As these older employees are gearing up to leave, the agency is left with a young, new workforce. Over 70% of USAID’s younger employees have less than five years of work experience.

Another problem USAID is facing is the lack of support from Obama’s administration. The slip up in Afghanistan was acknowledged but underscored by USAID, who defended the error with the fact that knowing the geographical coordinates for the center is not the first priority. However, the mistake undermines international credibility and domestic trust in the agency. USAID officials are also claiming that as the United States continues to prepare to fully leave Afghanistan, their own on-the-ground operations are threatened by a lack of firsthand protection. However, the avoidance and negation of blame that such statements allude to may come from a larger internal frustration with a lack of attention from the government and a lack of experienced staff.

Continued increases in spending on military and defense, despite widespread support of development as a better investment for long-term national security measures, undermines the work that USAID can do. Military-led humanitarian efforts rarely focus on the real core issues contributing to the problems and instead expend energy on the symptoms, which makes it unsustainable and often ineffective in the long-term.

The development sector of the government receives only a fraction of what the military receives. Development needs to be made a priority in order for it to receive the recognition and funding that it deserves so it can not only improve countries around the world, but our own country as well.

– Emma Dowd

Sources: Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition
Photo: Washington Post

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What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved?

What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved?

What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved? In 2000, the United Nations set out on a clearly defined mission to end global poverty by means of tackling eight core areas of need. Now we are looking back, 15 years later, and seeing how successful the UN was in meeting their goals-and where the new Sustainability Goals will need to take up the slack.

The Millennium Development Goals were designed as a framework for developing impoverished nations by addressing the most critical needs of the society, like reliable food sources, access to education, and adequate health care.
Each goal had specific targets which the United Nations hoped they would meet by 2015. Some goals had more success than others.

The UN’s goal of halving global poverty was met with resounding success, as the number of people living on less than one dollar and 25 cents a day dropped from one point nine billion in 1990, to 836 million in 2015. An estimated 14 percent of the global population are living in extreme poverty today, down from nearly half in 1990.

The reduction in the proportion of undernourished people globally narrowly missed its target, coming within two percent of the 50 percent reduction goal. Though narrowly missing their target, given the exponential human population growth over the last three two decades, it is still a considerable success.

The goals suffered two more near misses in their attempts to increase educational opportunities for all, including establishing gender equality in schools. An estimated 10 percent of children are not receiving any formal education, and only about two -thirds of developing countries have achieved gender equality in the classroom.

Goals four and five of the Millennium Goals, which addressed child and maternal mortality, respectively, both failed to meet their targets. While both the mortality rate of children under five and maternal deaths were reduced by over half, both failed to reach the two-thirds reduction target.

Goal six, stop and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other diseases was similarly not met in the given 15 year time frame. Although the rate of new HIV/AIDS infections has fallen by around 40 percent, an estimated two point one million people are still being infected annually. The fight against malaria and other diseases prevalent in developing areas has seen more success however, with an estimated six point two million malaria deaths averted between 2000 and 2015.

The final two goals of the 2000 Millennium Development Goals tackled strengthening infrastructure, sustainable development, and international partnership. While both goals are still on-going endeavors, over the last decade, two point six billion people have gained access to improved drinking water and official development assistance to developing nations has risen by nearly seven percent.

Overall, the United Nations has experienced great success in their struggle to address the needs of the poor around the world, but they are the first to admit that more work is needed. In the official Millennium Development Goals report, released earlier this month, Wu Hongbo Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs admitted that success has been uneven across developing nations. “Millions of people are being left behind, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity or geographic location. Targeted efforts will be needed to reach the most vulnerable people,” said Hongbo.

The Quick and Dirty of Hits and Misses:
Goal #1: Target goal met and exceeded
Goal #2: Target goal nearly achieved
Goal #3: Not met
Goal #4: Not met
Goal #5: Not met
Goal #6: Not met
Goal #7: Target achieved ahead of schedule
Goal #8: No target specified, on-going action

The Sustainable Development Goals of 2015 will pick up where the Millennium Goals left off and continue to guide the United Nations as they work to eradicate global poverty.

– Gina Lehner

Sources: The Guardian, UN
Photo: Global Classrooms

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UN Scales Back Food Aid for Syrian Refugees

UN-Scales-Back-on-Food-Aid-for-Syrian-Refugees
In the wake of large budget cuts and conflict with the Islamic State, or ISIS, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling back its food aid for more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon. These cuts will manifest themselves in the monthly food assistance vouchers that Syrian refugees receive. Normally valued at $19 per person, the vouchers will be reduced to $13.50 as of July.

Around 75% of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon are undergoing “some level of food insecurity,” according to a recent WFP survey. In addition, roughly 800,000 refugees in Lebanon qualify for food vouchers, and this scale-back is arriving right in the middle of Ramadan.

The WFP was banking on a ceasefire between ISIS and the Syrian government in order to let Syrian farmers harvest wheat stored in ISIS territory. No such ceasefire took place.

“That wheat that is harvested cannot be brought across lines of conflict into the area where it is needed most by people who are suffering now into a fifth year of this conflict,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin told the Associated Press.

A WFP press release issued earlier this month points out that the WFP’s refugee operations are currently 81% underfunded. The WFP is requesting $139 million in order to continue aiding refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Iraq through the summer.

“We are extremely concerned about the impact these cuts will have on refugees and the countries that host them,” WFP Regional Director Muhammad Hadi told the U.N. News Centre. “Families are taking extreme measures to cope such as pulling their children out of school, skipping meals and getting into debt to survive. The long-term effects of this could be devastating.”

– Alexander Jones

Sources: McGuirk, UN, Wood
Photo: The Guardian