Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Women, girls and cuts to humanitarian aid
On Inside Geneva this week, aid agencies count the costs of funding cuts.
“I am most sad for all the millions of people living with HIV and affected by HIV whose lives have been upended. They have lost access to life-saving medication. They have showed up at clinics for support, only to find no one there to help them,” says Angeli Achrekar, Deputy Executive Director for the Programme Branch at the Joint United Nations (UN) Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
The cuts are hitting women and girls especially hard.
“Right now, a woman dies from a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes. That’s unacceptable. One of the grants that the United States has just cut supports the training and salaries of midwives,” says Sarah Craven, Director of the Washington Office of UNFPA, the UN Population Fund.
What will happen to local NGOs in crisis zones that relied on UN support?
“I have to have hope. I am the leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have staff and 12,000 volunteers behind me. So, I always have to be really strong and give hope to everyone to continue serving Sudan,” says Aida Al-Sayed Abdullah, Secretary General of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society.
But could the cuts bring much-needed reform?
“Sure, the humanitarian system isn’t perfect. It can be inefficient and a little bit colonialistic at times. But it was delivering results. We were seeing actual progress. Now, in just a few months, decades of progress will be erased,” says Dorian Burkhalter, SWI swissinfo.ch journalist.
Or will the cuts cost lives and cause more crisis?
“We’re so close to ending AIDS, full stop. Now, we could very well be turning back completely. All those years of work, dedication and progress,” says Achrekar.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland.
Speaker 1:In today's program, the Trump administration has issued a halt to nearly all existing foreign aid. Creating safe zones for Syrian women in refugee camps, providing medical assistance to pregnant women in Burma this is the type of action the UN Population Fund has led. The US has been one of the UN agency's founders and main donors. It's now ceasing all contributions.
Speaker 3:Right now, a woman dies of a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes. Okay, so that's unacceptable. What is one of the grants that the US just cut is to support the training and salaries for midwives.
Speaker 1:The United Nations is saying that there could be 2,000 new cases of HIV due to the USAID cuts. This as President Donald Trump puts millions of dollars of foreign aid on pause.
Speaker 4:We actually had something that was successful. We were one of the only 17 sustainable development goals that was able to see the end in sight. We're so close to ending AIDS full stop and we could very well be turning back completely. In Sudan, the freeze on US aid has forced up to 80% of emergency food kitchens, or about 1,100 facilities to close, I will always have the hope and I have to have hope.
Speaker 5:I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have a staff. I have 12, hope. I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have a staff. I have 12,000 volunteers behind me. So I always have to be really strong and give the hope to everybody to continue serving the Sudan.
Speaker 6:Sure, the humanitarian system isn't perfect, you know, it might be inefficient sometimes, it might be a little bit colonialistic sometimes, but I mean it was delivering results. We were seeing actual progress and now, in a few months, decades of progress will be raised.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. And in today's programme we're going to return because it is such a huge subject for the United Nations here to the huge cuts in funding for humanitarian aid, and I'm joined here in the studio by Swiss Info correspondent, Dorianne Burkhalter. Good to have you with us, Dorianne.
Speaker 6:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Now you've been covering this extensively and also a bit later in the programme we're going to hear from specific aid agencies about how their work has been impacted so far, and particularly the effect on women and girls in crisis zones. Dorian, I think it's hard to underestimate the sense of shock that there has been in Geneva from the aid agencies about these cuts.
Speaker 6:Yeah, no, you're right. I mean there is a real sense of worry about the impact those cuts will have, mostly on people underground. But we've also heard, I mean, that the cuts will also touch UN workers working here, other workers in other NGOs. But I think really, initially there was surprise by just the breadth of those cuts and how fast they came. There was a 90 days period review. Now we're at the end of it and there's still a lot of Theoretically. Theoretically, there's still a lot of uncertainty. But I think it's important to also remind the listeners just about how much the US was contributing to humanitarian aid. It was paying for 40% of global aid and about half of that came from USAID, which now we know, or think we know, will pretty much disappear, with more than 80% of its programs being closed. So I mean, in any case, we know the impact will be huge, but it's hard to have a clear picture of just what will happen next.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Actually. I mean, I think we heard this 90-day period theoretically ended this week. This was the period in which aid programs were theoretically going to be assessed by the United States of whether they were worthwhile or not. But aid agencies are still in the dark and I think, listeners, you might be interested to know this, but it's kind of sneak peek behind the scenes of what we do, briefing from the UN aid agencies and it is really now a litany of confusion, anxiety and misery. So this Tuesday morning we heard of funding cuts for millions of people in Ethiopia, which it's dropped off the radar screens, but the conflict and suffering there has not disappeared. So people there who are severely malnourished the warning signs even possible impending famine are there now will not be getting food because there's no money. And this morning we heard about what did we hear about? Sudan?
Speaker 6:Sudan.
Speaker 2:Ukraine.
Speaker 6:Ukraine.
Speaker 2:Ukraine. Funding cuts for displaced people in Ukraine. Funding cuts for food aid in Sudan, where 25 million people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian aid. That's half the population.
Speaker 6:And Sudan is the cause of the world's largest displacement crisis. What is it? 12 million people displaced.
Speaker 2:I think it's closer to 13 now. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Internally and externally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, out into Chad, places like the neighboring countries. So every day, or at least twice a week, we hear from the aid agencies we're going to have to stop this, we're going to have to stop that. But there's always a caveat at the end, we think, because there still seems to be a lot of confusion about what's actually happening who's Deputy Executive Director of Programs at UNAIDS. So what I asked her was so where do you stand now? These 90 days are over and, as you see, she was a bit challenged to answer.
Speaker 4:Our expectation was that after 90 days, which would effectively be April 19th, we would have had a signal or decision one way or the other, in terms of what the funding landscape from the US government might look like in the HIV response, what kind of parameters, considerations, et cetera. It might look like the unfortunate reality is that the decisions have not yet been made. We understand that the 90-day review has been extended by 30 days and that decisions will be communicated on or around May 19th. So still a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 2:As we speak. One of the things that I'm hearing from a number of different aid agencies is the concern, the impact some of these cuts will have specifically on women and girls. Is that something that concerns you too? Are you seeing that?
Speaker 4:The disruption of services and the devastation of services, both HIV prevention and treatment services, has truly been seismic in terms of what has happened at the country level. At the community level, women and girls are, particularly on the continent of Africa, are hit very hard. It is young women and girls that often suffer the most when these kinds of major cuts happen. As you know, women and girls are more than three times more likely than their male counterparts in Africa to be living with HIV and every week, for example, 4,000 adolescent girls and young women become infected with HIV globally. 3,100 of those live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaker 4:So the impact of what has happened with the stop work orders and the freeze and the cutting of funding has definitely impacted women and girls, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. It is deeply concerning what we are seeing, with pregnant women, for example, going into clinics, women that may have HIV that are not tested for HIV, then their unborn child if they are deemed positive, you know, and not put on treatment, then their unborn child being born positive with HIV. We're seeing prevention services just shuttered completely, while we're seeing 1.3 million new infections all around the world. So we are very concerned about ensuring prevention services for women and girls, as well as treatment continuity for adolescent girls and young women, and this is an area of focus that we have to continue.
Speaker 2:Well, you're in Washington at the moment. Have you got a sympathetic ear there? Have you found people who perhaps do understand the consequences of neglecting HIV prevention?
Speaker 4:We were grateful that a waiver came from Secretary Rubio to protect comprehensive testing and treatment services HIV treatment services. Part of that memo included prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Speaker 2:In my mind that is a very clear direction for prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women Now just clarify on the issue of the waiver, because I've heard from different aid agencies that they have got emails saying, yes, you've got a waiver, but that the money to back that up that waiver has not actually been freed up again. Do you have clarity about?
Speaker 4:that what's been challenging, related to the implementation of the waiver, as you're describing, is that, while the waiver was issued and put in place and has listed out a number of these parameters, like comprehensive treatment, like prevention of mother-to-child transmission and prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women, what was also happening in the background is significant structural changes to other parts of the US government.
Speaker 4:For example, we've been seeing, as you've been seeing, all the changes that have been happening to the aid agency, usaid and other parts of the US government. So, while these changes are happening in the background, financial management systems, people that are within the US government. So, while these changes are happening in the background, financial management systems, people that are within the US government that would normally be working on the procurement and the movement of money and the contracting work. These are people that existed one day and didn't the next, or financial systems that were functional one day and not the next, and so that's part of what has prohibited the waiver from being implemented successfully across the board. The question now will also be what does the future look like beyond the waiver? How can we make sure that what is prioritized is indeed what needs to be prioritised for the HIV response?
Speaker 2:Kind of clear as mud really. She really doesn't know what money she's going to get and what not, and whether prevention of HIV in pregnant women is included in life saving. She seems to think that prevention for other people is not included to think that prevention for other people is not included.
Speaker 6:I mean, it is a really worrying testimony and I think with this question of prevention, now we see that the US is trying to says there will be waivers for life-saving initiatives, but over the years and this sometimes is criticized the UN has been doing much more than just life-saving initiatives, and that's also other big NGOs, smaller NGOs, but it's also just because humanitarian needs have exploded over the last 20 years. Right, there were 5 billion in 2005. There are now 50 billion Dollars, dollars, dollars, yeah. So now saying you won't do prevention is, I mean, really complicated, because it's an effective way of also controlling those needs and the cost Exactly so.
Speaker 6:There's a real tension here between saying you want to prioritize and, at the same time, saving lives.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering though, because you have been talking in depth and we should say that Dorian's going to have a whole series on Swiss Info, series of articles about the aid cuts and the reflection that's going on within aid agencies about the future within aid agencies. About the future, you know, there was a possibility. It must have been lurking in their minds for at least two years that Trump might be elected again and that there could be consequences for international aid. Do you think they were badly prepared?
Speaker 6:I think they never saw it coming that he would go or that he would hit this hard the humanitarian sector. But the problem of the influence of the US funding and, I think, more broadly, Western countries funding it's a handful of countries that pay for about or more than 60% of the humanitarian system. This issue was identified years ago and they've been calling for more countries to contribute to aid operations worldwide, but I think those calls have not really been listened to because there aren't really that many countries beyond Western countries that pay for humanitarian aid. In recent years we've seen some of the Gulf countries, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Speaker 2:But they I mean these are wealthy, oil-rich countries, they have money, but quite often it seems they spend money bilaterally. It doesn't go through the UN system and arguably it means that some of the real humanitarian priorities that the UN identifies in its neutral, impartial way don't necessarily get identified as clearly as they should. And we should also say because you pointed out there that majority of aid funding still comes from the same old countries. It's Europe, europe and it's the United States. And although the United States is the biggest cutter, it's not the only one. Germany is cutting, the UK is cutting, not in the same public.
Speaker 2:And I mean I have to say it does come across quite mean-spirited the language that's coming out of Washington about why they're cutting. I mean feeding USAID into the wood chipper, as Elon Musk said. It's cruel language. It doesn't really help the whole debate at all. But linked to that, we wanted to talk about whether, in particular with the US approach, there is also ideology going on. We know that countries think of aid as soft power. We know that the United States you say this very clearly in one of your articles has for decades thought of its humanitarian aid as a way of furthering its ideological beliefs. But that also now is impacting humanitarian aid. Tell us about the questionnaire the aid agencies got, because we haven't talked about it that much on Inside Geneva.
Speaker 6:Yeah, so it was last month, I think about a month ago. We learned that a lot of NGOs in Geneva, but also some of the UN agencies, had been receiving this questionnaire from the US government, asking them about questions like are you receiving any money from countries like China, like Russia? Do you implement diversity and inclusion programs? Do you support environmental causes? What's your stand on gender identity? Sort of a checklist of MAGA compliance. Make America Great Again, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean very much the MAGA idea of what's good and what's bad.
Speaker 6:Bad yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think all of the aid agencies have been put on the back foot by this, because I mean, frankly, if you look at the World Food Programme, they are seeing people hungry directly because of the consequences of climate change. They are seeing UNICEF or the UN Population Fund, which we're going to come on to in a moment, clearly seeing the need for programs to specifically support women and girls in areas of conflict, because of the vulnerability of women and girls.
Speaker 6:And this is, I think I mean we were talking earlier about uncertainty about what those cuts eventually will look like. I think this questionnaire gives us a good indication of the people that will be left out, and it will be women, it will be minorities, it will be the environment as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that could be quite devastating and in fact already is proving devastating. I want to play you a bit of an interview with Sarah Craven, who is the North American director of the UN Population Fund. Now, of all the aid agencies which perhaps should have planned for a cut in funding is indeed the UNFPA, because they have for years had a, shall we say, complicated relationship with Republican administrations in Washington, because they offer health support and reproductive health support that can mean contraception to women in developing countries, and their funding has been cut by previous administrations the Bush administration, I think also the Reagan administration. So here's Sarah giving us a perhaps broader, out of the tabloid headlines example of what UNFPA actually does.
Speaker 3:I'll give you one example. Last week, the UN issued a report. We like to issue reports in the UN, and this one was a really devastating one about maternal mortality. You know, we've made progress in preventing maternal mortality, but we're at a real risk of, you know, falling back on some of that progress. Right now, a woman dies of a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes. Okay, so that's unacceptable. And you know, in this report it talked about where is one of the the most dangerous place for a woman to give birth right now is in Chad. You have a one in 24 chance of dying in childbirth.
Speaker 3:What is one of the grants that the US just cut is to support the training and salaries for midwives midwives. So we're talking about small interventions that can make a difference in saving a woman from dying in childbirth having a trained birth attendant or a midwife. And then, with no reason, that funding was cut and was not seen as life-saving. So that's kind of what we're dealing with right now. As I said, we had anticipated that there would be cut, potentially, you know no future funding coming. What we didn't really anticipate was that all of our existing contracts, which were over 300 million, would suddenly face a stop work order.
Speaker 2:If you already had the funding, what was to stop you just ignoring the stop work order on the basis that stopping work would risk the lives of women and girls?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we, like every other UN organization, international organization, have signed contracts with the US government. So when they give you a stop work order, that's under the contractual obligations. So we couldn't go rogue. You know we have three big goals that we're trying to achieve. One is to ensure that anyone who would like to have access to voluntary, effective, safe methods of birth control have that access. Two is to ensure that no one dies giving life and that we end preventable maternal mortality. And three, that women and girls are protected from violence. I mean these are big things that impact. Three, that women and girls are protected from violence. I mean these are big things that impact the women of lives and girls and I think everyone agrees on them.
Speaker 3:These are low-cost interventions. I always say we're not looking for a cure, we're not looking for trillion-dollar investment, but a small intervention like one example is if your listeners had a visual is we have something that's called a safe delivery kit costs about $5. And it's very simple. It's a sheet of plastic, a bar of soap, plastic gloves, a string, a razor blade and info instructions, like picture instructions of how to deliver a baby safely. So if you're a woman who's pregnant in a place where there's no hospital, no midwife, no traditional birth attendant. This might be your best shot at having a sterile surface to deliver a baby. It's a very small intervention that can make a huge difference and you know, we have interventions that go from that to larger ones, like hospitainers that could be delivered to a humanitarian setting where women could be receiving not only maternity care but also protection and treatment if they've been subjected to sexual violence. So these are the few pinnings of support that women and girls who've lost everything can rely on.
Speaker 2:That makes me very sad. To hear that, I mean, I've had two children and you know, even in a Swiss hospital, when you're having a baby, you do realize that the plastic sheet and the pair of scissors are the basics that you need, and to think that women can be without anything just makes me really, really sad.
Speaker 6:And it's again a good example of a prevention measure that costs little money but has a huge impact and now is being cut, possibly because it's not targeting the right audience or being seen as serving US interests. But I mean it also shows that, beyond what is considered life-saving, all the other prevention initiatives that the UN does are having a real impact. They're not just nice to have.
Speaker 2:No life-saving. But I think it appears that the interpretation of life-saving well, as we heard from UN AIDS, the people they could discuss whether a program was life-saving or just kind of life-improving are not at their desks anymore.
Speaker 2:They've been fed into Elon Musk's woodchipper. What is emerging for me, though, really here is, as we said, you said, minorities and women and girls, and we know that women and girls are particularly vulnerable in conflict Women, girls and children, you know they get pushed out of the way in chaotic food distribution operations. They are very vulnerable to sexual violence, particularly if you've not got a well-run UN refugee camp where they have precisely those programs run by UNFPA or UNICEF, for example, to try and prevent that. I'm going to come back to Sudan, because we're beginning to also ask ourselves, I think, who is left in crisis zones, and I had the great good fortune to meet up with the General Secretary of the Sudanese Red Crescent. She is Aida El-Sayed Abdullah, and she was here in Geneva for a few days trying to raise attention to the crisis in Sudan, and there we have heard that sexual violence is rife and being used, as human rights groups say, as a weapon of war. Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 5:The report about sexual violence is really breaking the heart about what the Sudanese people is really suffering. We have found a lot of cases. I have a doctor working with me. I never know that she's a doctor. She came as a volunteer and she's giving tea and coffee and by the end I said who is she? They tell me she's a doctor and I just asked her the question that why you are not in a hospital. What are you doing here shouting no, I am not a doctor, I am a volunteer. When we deep in her story, she has been raped 30 times and by the time they bring her to the hospital she is almost dying. So it took one year from us to talk to her. So this is only one case.
Speaker 2:We have millions of cases like that in Sudan. You work sometimes with the UN Population Fund on programmes to support survivors of sexual violence, yet this is one aspect of the UN that's being really cut to the bone. Does that worry you that particularly programmes for women and girls seem to be losing out? They're often neglected in conflict anyway, but now they really seem to be losing out. They're often neglected in conflict anyway, but now they really seem to be losing out.
Speaker 5:The cut of the budget really makes us shaking, because we get a good fund from UNIVBA and UNICEF for these cases and now, after the cut of the budget, if they pull out, we only get the support from the movement and the appeal of IFRC that we're working in that with them. That is only 30% funded. In the beginning of the war, for a few months we can see Sudan is there in the media. You open the TV, open the social media, sudan is there. But after that completely forget it. Nobody talk about Sudan, nobody talk about the suffering of the people there. We launch appeals to support the Sudanese community. Only 30% has been covered. The international community is not there for Sudan. The war has to stop, peace has to come, but the right of the Sudanese people to go back to their life, to go back to their houses, this has to be put on the table now.
Speaker 2:It feels like we're a long way from that. I mean, I'm beginning to ask myself who is going to be left in these crisis zones.
Speaker 6:I mean, I think the question of who will be there last is really interesting, because I think if you're running out of money and you're still in Sudan, I mean what are you going to do? You're going to try to have the biggest impact you can, but then you also maybe won't be looking at who isn't getting aid and you won't be able to report on that very much, and so we may also never know what happens in all those places where the last people who were still getting a little bit of money no longer has it. They won't be telling the story of the people they're not able to help anymore if they just completely shut down their operation.
Speaker 2:So we heard from the UN Population Fund that the UN did a report, which it's good to have, this data on maternal mortality. Which is it's good to have this data on maternal mortality? We may never know what maternal mortality rises to in Sudan or Chad or Yemen or Afghanistan, because the support for mothers and babies has gone and the people even assessing the problem are gone. It's interesting also that the Sudanese Red Crescent and we hear so often about the necessity of having local people on the ground and Aida is from Khartoum. She's a displaced person herself. She now lives in Port Sudan, but she will not leave and she wants to support her country, and she is exactly the right person, a woman from Sudan, to approach Sudanese women who have been subjected to sexual violence. But the Sudanese Red Crescent was getting support from the UN Population Fund to run its programs on sexual violence and support for survivors, and this is one of the interlinking things, isn't it? That's also causing huge problems.
Speaker 6:Yeah and this is also something I learned about while writing my stories is I was talking to MSF, and MSF is not funded by the US government. It gets 97 percent of its global funding from the private sector and actually mostly individuals, people like you and me and yet they do rely, for example, on local health ministries for vaccines that were supported by the US aid.
Speaker 2:Or via the World Health Organization or the World.
Speaker 6:Health Organizations, or were using some of those programs to get vaccines at a better price. So if these aren't there anymore, they will have to pay for vaccines. That will increase their costs. They were using the UN for logistics as well, For example, the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which is a service where you can rent a small plane or an helicopter to reach hard-to-reach areas or areas that are just too dangerous to reach by road. They won't be able to do that anymore if funding decreases there. And also, I mean, what is the point for them on a refugee camp to provide some of the health services they provide If there isn't food, if there isn't water, if there isn't shelter? They'll have to do that as well. So it feels like a lot of NGOs have to increase their costs and ask for more money because their partners aren't here anymore. So there are a lot of interlinkings we don't even think about.
Speaker 2:We don't, and I think it's one of those things. I think it must be a source of real frustration, perhaps to the UN and particularly OCHA, coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, because they worked very hard I mean, I've watched this over 20 years to develop a very coherent system, a cluster system, where one aid agency, the most fitted for the job, would be the lead agency in a crisis, the lead agency in a crisis, and then they would work outwards with other UN agencies and implementing partners, which is exactly what MSF Doctors Without Borders is. They have the trained doctors, they have their private money to pay them, but they rely on this UN infrastructure in the background, and if that's gone, it will be very hard for MSF in many parts of the world to work. Do you think, then, we're looking at an absolute, radical shake up of how humanitarian aid is done? I mean, for me, I just feel like we're looking almost a bit at a smouldering ruin. We don't see anything rising from the ashes yet.
Speaker 6:Yeah, no, I think we are. I mean and I've heard this as well from a few people in the sector that this really is an existential crisis for humanitarian aid and also a lot of I guess analogy I heard a lot is that it's easier to demolish a house than it is to build one.
Speaker 6:And I think this is exactly what's happening is NGOs are closing, people are leaving this field and also just public opinion will get used to a lower level of funding. And if we don't hear about crisis anymore because no one's there to talk about them, really who is going to step in? We've seen that there seem to be limited interest from other countries to pay for humanitarian aid, at least through the UN system. We can also talk about China, the world's second economy.
Speaker 2:A bit stingy.
Speaker 6:Yes, Last year paid for $8 million. China paid $8 million, last year $8 million. The US was paying $10 billion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more than 1,000 times as much. And there you can see the American taxpayer getting a bit frustrated, although I think we did say once, point out, and we should perhaps point out again, that the percentage of its GDP that the US spends on foreign aid is much smaller than many European countries. We traditionally spend more. It's just that our economy is more proportionally just, our economies aren't as big, so in cold hard cash it's less. Well, I think you know we should revisit this in a year's time, but I fear, I really fear, even from a journalistic point of view, because my colleagues and myself I've done it also. When we go to crisis zones, we often get there with the support of the humanitarians on the ground, and if they're not there anymore, it's not only that, just money will not be going to crisis, they will go unreported and we will retreat further and further into our little privileged enclaves and forget about the rest of the world, which seems very sad.
Speaker 6:Not a very positive note to end on, but I agree.
Speaker 2:Well, we won't end quite yet. Just before we go, I asked each of the three women that I interviewed just to give me a little summing up for the future where they think things are going. And I want to start with Aida from Sudan, from the Sudanese Red Crescent, because she will stay there. She is a displaced person. She can't give up on her country. She doesn't have that choice here in Europe or America. We may have the choice to give up on Sudan, but she doesn't have that choice.
Speaker 5:I'm there in Port Sudan because I love my country, I love my national society and I think I have to do something for my country and for my national society. I will always have the hope and I have to have hope for my country and for my national society. I will always have the hope and I have to have hope. I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society. I have a staff. I have 12,000 volunteers behind me, so I always have to be really strong and give the hope to everybody to continue serving the Sudan. So we hope within one or two years everything will be finished and we can go back home. Because even Sudanese Red Crescent, we're all IDPs. We are based in Khartoum, we have been kicked and now we are based in Port Sudan or other areas and we try to do our best to serve the Sudanese community. But we never lose hope. Sudan will go back community.
Speaker 2:But we never lose hope. Sudan will go back. It's shaming somehow to think that she's there with 12,000 Sudanese volunteers, not paid volunteers, and yet here in Europe or in America we quibble about a dollar a month from the population to support people in crisis like that. From the population to support people in crisis like that. I will let you hear now Sarah from UNFPA.
Speaker 3:Our commitment is not going to change. Our commitment to our mandate is unwavering, that we are going to continue to do what we can to support vulnerable women and girls, forgotten women and girls everywhere we work, whether it's in a development or humanitarian context, and I fundamentally believe that you know others will continue to support the UN system, continue to do their own support. But it's troubling because it's not just the US. You see other countries that are cutting their ODA, so it's a very bleak funding picture and I think it's going to require others to step up, others to partner, and it's a troubling time. It's a really troubling time but I, you know, I guess I'm still an optimist in that you know people are fundamentally good and want to help people around the world.
Speaker 2:I hope. Do you think her optimism is justified?
Speaker 6:I don't really see it. I mean, as she said, I think it is again important to stress that it's not just the US that's retreating from the humanitarian sector. It is also other Western countries, including Switzerland, countries that are proud of their humanitarian tradition. And I mean, I really am impressed by the courage, determination and optimism of these women, because I feel like us journalists are a lot more pessimistic in general.
Speaker 2:I mean it's our job to try and analyze the situation and I mean I agree with you. I don't share the situation and I mean I agree with you. I don't share the optimism. I think the US money is gone, certainly for the next four years, and the damage that could be done in those four years is immense and I don't think has quite sunk in. But here let's listen just at the last two Angele of UNAIDS, because she gives for me the clearest and most impassioned, in a way, explanation of why it's really short-sighted for all of us to disinvest in humanitarian funding.
Speaker 4:Does this make me sad? The lack of global solidarity right now? Funding Does this make me sad? The lack of global solidarity right now? Absolutely, I am most sad, not for myself. I am most sad for all the millions of people living with HIV and affected by HIV whose lives have been upended in one way, shape or form in the past few months. They have lost access to life-saving medication. They have showed up at clinics for support with no one there to support them. You know, women have gone into clinics to provide care for their unborn child with no medication or no testing or no services.
Speaker 4:What makes me sad also, imogen, is that we actually had something that was successful. We were making progress. We were one of the only 17 sustainable development goals that was able to see the end in sight. So what makes me sad is that we're this close, we're so close to ending AIDS full stop, and we could very well be turning back completely. All these years of work, dedication and progress are fragile and could be unraveled. So while I am sad about the people that have been impacted and I'm sad about the prospect that we might be missing of achieving the end of AIDS, I have to continue to be hopeful that the world will come together, mobilize together in solidarity to make sure that we fulfill our promise and we end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Speaker 2:It is possible, it is doable, and what it takes right now is leaning in instead of leaning away I mean, you're too young to remember the 1980s, but I'm not and to see this illness, which people were terrified of, and then find treatments for it, find ways to prevent it and then step away. I mean, it was a shining beacon, the US funding for AIDS treatment and prevention.
Speaker 6:And I mean I think, sure, the humanitarian system isn't perfect, you know, it might be inefficient sometimes, it might be a little bit colonialistic sometimes, but I mean it was delivering results. And I think we're back to this idea of it's easier to destroy a house than it is to build one. We were seeing actual progress and now in a few months, in a few years, decades of progress will be raised and that's extremely worrying.
Speaker 2:And I think this applies to AIDS, it applies to other diseases as well, it applies in Malaria, tb, maternal mortality the list is long and depressing and we don't want to leave you on a really depressing note, but we are going to have to leave you. But, dorian, when are your, is your series of articles coming out? Because a lot of the questions that listeners might have based on this conversation are addressed there, too, in more detail so they're going to come out over the next two weeks, starting in French.
Speaker 6:So for our French speaking listeners, they'll read them first.
Speaker 2:Sneak preview francophones lucky you.
Speaker 6:And the English versions will follow, hopefully shortly, but in the coming weeks as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you can find all of them on Swissinfoch. That is it from us for this edition of Inside Geneva. Join us, though, in two weeks, where we're going to have that long-promised discussion on toxic masculinity and whether UN Human Rights is correct. The UN Human Rights Commissioner has said he sees it as very concerning the rise in what he called toxic masculinity. We're going to have an all-woman show for that one. Thank you, Dorianne, for that one. Thank you, Dorianne, for joining us. Thank you all for listening, and join us next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folksowkes. Thanks again for listening.
