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A girl is behind humanitarian aid boxes delivered by UNICEF in a temporary camp in the city of Tabqa, Syria, August 4, 2017. The termination bill reduced the US funds of this United Nations agency working with children.
Delil Souleiman / AFP / Via Getty Images
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Delil Souleiman / AFP / Via Getty Images
The Congress has given the White House for more than a week, its wish to recover $ 7.9 billion that Congress previously allocated for sickness and famine expenses, help in the event of a disaster and the promotion of democracy.
But the details on what the packaging will really reduce is not so clear that many in the non -profit aid sector scratch their heads trying to understand what the impact will be.
“Quite honestly, we really don’t know,” said Lisa Bos, vice-president of policies and government relations at InteractionAn alliance of aid groups. “It is very difficult to understand how these cuts will be implemented in the future.”
The White House had asked the congress to take over this money as part of its foreign aid expenses reduction plan and eliminate the “waste of taxpayers’ funds”. The congress voted to approve the package on July 18.
The termination package codifies the reductions in foreign aid that the administration and the government’s Ministry of Efficiency were carried out earlier this year during its dismantling of the American agency for international development. Foreign aid programs were widely managed by USAID before the Trump administration closed it, citing crawling “fraud and abuses”. Administration has again to provide evidence To support his allegations.
The White House has not provided details in the termination either document sent to the Congress for approval. What the document lists are big buckets for funding for things like “global health”, “migration and refugee assistance” and “democracy fund”, arguing that the reductions “would best serve the American taxpayer” – but no details.
“They will not tell us how they will apply the cuts,” Senator Mitch McConnell told the journalist on July 16.
NPR asked for clarification on the White House cancellation package but did not receive an answer.
However, the Trump termination document offers indices on what will be cut. Interviews with those who work in foreign aid add to the image of what a post -imémué world might look like.
Long -term development aid takes a big blow
The two largest buckets of money in the cancellation package are intended for programs that work to help people living in extreme poverty or provide infrastructure such as electricity, roads and drinking water. The package will resume $ 2.5 billion in development aid and nearly $ 1.7 billion thanks to the economic support fund.
These billions have enabled NGOs to strengthen resilience between communities and local health care systems to cope with emergencies, such as natural disasters or economic shocks.
“This is what really guarantees that we do not have to respond in a more expensive way to an emergency, where you do prevention work, by creating resilience and by removing people from poverty. This particular part was decimated in this package,” said Lisa BOS of the interaction.
Development programs cover a myriad of measures in the effort to create stability and to mitigate migration: expand access to education in low -income countries, create job opportunities, improve infrastructure to provide electricity and clean water, supporting the financial independence of women.
“In an ideal world, you don’t have to answer each crisis, you don’t have to wait for something to happen to react,” said Bos. “This is what development really helps.”
BOS has described development cuts as a “nail in the coffin” of the idea of strengthening self-sufficiency in low-income countries so that they can respond and solve problems at home without help from the United States or other countries.
“If your vision is at some point to reduce dependence on foreign assistance, the way you do this is that you provide people with tools and skills to provide themselves, to have an education, to have access to new methods of agriculture, to have access to even basic things like drinking water,” she said.
Trump administration officials argued that development work is ineffective and offer taxpayers money to corrupt governments.
UNICEF loses part of its basic financing
The termination package reduces $ 142 million in basic funding for UNICEF, the United Nations agency which is largely congratulated for its work to improve the lives of children. In the bill, UNICEF is listed with other non -affiliated groups with which the Trump administration has long been an ox, such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Population Fund.
The inclusion of UNICEF was a shock for those of the world of help.
“UNICEF is about as wild as possible, working with mothers and children and on questions such as nutrition” as well as health care provision during humanitarian crises, explains BOS of interaction.
The termination affects American donations to the basic funding of UNICEF rather than specific programs. Patrick Quirk, UNICEF vice-president for global policy and public affairs, calls it “the most important pot that the United States provides” to the organization. Cutting it has a significant impact on UNICEF’s ability to meet the needs of children in crises, he said.
“This is the funding line on which UNICEF is based to be reactive, effective, extremely effective in immediately responding to disasters, and there is no other plug and play solution to fill this gap.”
UNICEF has traditionally appreciated bipartite support; Some senators have decided to remove UNICEF from the termination package, but Senator Eric Schmitt, R-MO., Has successfully opposed.
“The Mission of UNICEF, although admirable, is not immune to waste, fraud and abuse. This is why this cancellation package includes $ 142 million for UNICEF’s general costs”, “ Schmitt argued during the debate on the Senate soil earlier this month.
Patrick Quirk de l’INICEF claims that the funds canceled were not for the general costs.
“It is used to quickly deploy people to alleviate epidemics of infectious diseases. It is used to combat the deep causes of migration in places like Guatemala and Mexico, so that you do not accelerate migration beyond our borders,” said Quirk. “And he has also proven to address some of the engines of terrorism in places like the Sahel [a region in sub-Saharan Africa]. “”
Global health programs and disaster assistance lose funding
In May, a survey by the Pew Research Center has shown that the majority of Americans – Democrats and Republicans – support foreign aid for medicine, medical supplies, food and clothing to residents of low -income countries.
The package that Congress has adopted includes $ 500 million in global health programs and more than a billion cuts with humanitarian aid, including emergency disaster aid. The details of which programs would be impacted are not clear.
The White House says in the packaging he sent to the congress that these cuts “would eliminate the programs which are antithetical from American interests and aggravate the lives of women and children, such as family planning ” and” reproductive health “, the efforts of the LGBTQI + administration to eliminate foreign assistance programs from the administration.
Several senators on both sides of the aisle have expressed their concerns that the package would reduce the financing of vital maternal and infant health programs as well as efforts to combat diseases such as malaria, polio and tuberculosis.
During an audience held by the Senate credit committee on June 25, Russell Vought, director of the management and budget office, insisted that wild humanitarian aid would be authorized to continue but did not provide details on how these programs would be protected against being reduced by virtue of the termination package.
But BOS says that there is no mandate that would oblige the administration to ensure that the rescue programs continue.
“I think they have been ready to go against Congress guidelines for six months, so we don’t really have much confidence or real assurances that rescue programs will be maintained as this package is implemented. And this is our greatest concern,” she said.
The financing of programs that support democracy is cut
The termination package also reduces significant funding for efforts to strengthen democracy and fight corruption in the former Soviet republics and Latin America countries. These programs included support for local childcare dogs for free and fair elections, corruption violations and human rights, as well as support for independent journalists.
The White House says that these funds “support the programs that undermine American values, interfere with the sovereignty of other countries, or the escape banks of corrupt leaders of their responsibilities towards their citizens”.
But in countries like Hungary and Serbia, Autocratic politicians have used The rhetoric of the Trump administration against USAID and its democracy support programs to pursue civil society groups in their own country.
In Serbia, for example, the authorities cited Elon Musk’s comments referring to USAID as a “criminal organization”. Armed The police went down to the group offices This had received funding from the USAID to document corruption and human rights violations in Serbia.
“The United States was previously the world’s backstop of human rights and support for democracy. And therefore who does this now? This is a huge loss,” explains Jonathan Katz, a former deputy administrator of the USAID and currently a member of the Brooker Institution, “It is unacceptable that the United States and the American president do not support this when there has been such strong support for democracy among the Republicans and the Democrats for decades.”
