Source: ChildFund New Zealand
President Trump has issued an immediate stop-work order for all USA funded aid projects to align aid budgets with his foreign policy agenda.
This will cause chaos and suffering across the world, and will impact on some ChildFund New Zealand programmes and partners, says CEO of ChildFund NZ, Josie Pagani.
“It isn’t just USA aid programmes that are impacted – it’s any charity or donor who is working on a joint project with USA funding.”
ChildFund New Zealand is working with its ChildFund partner in America, to support food security and clean water projects in places like Kenya and Sri Lanka.
“With our USA partner we know we reach about 15,000 people in the vulnerable district of Batticaloa in Sri Lanka with nutritious food by supporting small-holder farmers. We know that we get clean water and good food to thousands of people who otherwise would not have it in countries like Kenya. We also know that 10,000 children in Sri Lanka are getting access to education through digital hubs, as well as thousands of children in Zambia, who otherwise would not have access to education.”
“All of that is at risk with this stop-work order.”
“We have been told that all US Aid funded projects have three months to evaluate each program based on three criteria:
- Does the action make America safe?
- Does it make America stronger?
- Does it make America more prosperous?
“We welcome challenges about the effectiveness of aid. We should always hold ourselves accountable for success or failure when it comes to saving and improving the lives of people in some of the most vulnerable, war-torn or poorest places in the world.
New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters is in the process of reviewing New Zealand’s aid, and we welcome the review.
“But President Trump and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio are asking the wrong questions.”
“Aid is not there to make the donor countries rich or prosperous. There are better ways to do that.
The Focus of aid is to save lives, to lift children and communities out of extreme poverty, to stop people dying of preventable diseases, and to make sure every child and person has access to clean water and nutritious food, wherever they live.
Reducing the acute suffering of many millions of people reduces the likelihood of war, terrorism and political destabilisation. There is no doubt that effective aid programmes make us all safer.
The questions President Trump’s administration should be asking are:
- Are we making a difference with aid?
- Are local communities and institutions strong enough to continue the work after we leave?
- Are we helping to make the poorest places less dependent on aid, and ultimately more prosperous?
“At ChildFund New Zealand that is the standard by which we measure our work. We ask ourselves these questions all the time. If the answer is no, we adapt, change what we’re doing and sometimes stop.”
“If we are achieving those goals, to answer President Trump’s questions, we can say ‘yes, we are helping to make New Zealand and our Pacific region a safer and stronger place’,” says Josie Pagani.