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Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Mar25/02) Penang, 19 Mar (Kanaga Raja) — The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 18 March informed that it is implementing “essential structural adjustments” at its Geneva headquarters and globally “to align with the unavoidable financial realities following an unprecedented 30 per cent reduction in estimated donor funding for the year, including a major decrease in United States-funded projects worldwide.” In a statement, IOM said that the reduction in funding has severe impacts on vulnerable migrant communities, exacerbating humanitarian crises and undermining vital support systems for displaced populations. Further, this adjustment includes scaling back or ending projects affecting over 6,000 staff members worldwide and implementing a structural realignment at headquarters, reducing headquarters staffing by approximately 20 per cent (more than 250 staff), it added. “These measures aim to ensure that IOM can continue delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance to migrants and vulnerable communities worldwide, driving solutions for displaced populations, and supporting governments around the world in managing migration for the benefit of societies and migrants,” said the statement. IOM explained that it operates under a project-based funding model, established by its Member States, which allows for flexibility, agility, and responsiveness to global humanitarian needs. It said that when funding for specific projects ends, the impacts can be far-reaching, particularly for vulnerable communities who often have very few other options for support. “Necessarily, the financial resources to support staffing at headquarters and in our country missions also ends,” it pointed out. It said the Organization’s priority is to serve vulnerable populations worldwide despite the constrained funding environment. The IOM statement said that “to deliver on this mission in the most efficient way possible, the Organization is moving positions into lower cost regional offices and country missions, streamlining staffing, and identifying opportunities to better coordinate our work with other humanitarian actors.” “We expect that these changes will save costs as well as enable us to extend greater support globally to provide essential humanitarian assistance in crises worldwide,” it added. It said that: “These necessary adaptations will also enable the Organization to develop new funding, continue essential oversight and accountability, and streamline operations as IOM evolves to overcome current challenges and build on our proud history.” “We recognize the necessary impact these decisions will have on colleagues who have dedicated years to IOM’s mission, many of whom will lose their jobs,” it added. The statement underlined that at a time when conflict, climate-induced disasters, and economic instability are driving record levels of displacement, migration is not a peripheral issue, it is central to global security, stability, and sustainable development. “The world is witnessing historic displacement levels, yet funding to address the root causes of displacement is shrinking,” IOM pointed out. The IOM is the latest UN agency that has been affected by the US funding cuts. Other UN agencies such as UNAIDS, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and the World Food Programme (WFP) have had to scale back some of their operations in several vulnerable countries on account of these cuts. Humanitarian operations have also not been spared by these cuts. A “SEISMIC” SHOCK The pace and scale of funding cuts instituted by the major donors especially the United States are sending a “seismic shock” to the aid sector, and “many will die because that aid is drying up”, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official warned last week. “And across the UN family and our partners, we’re making tough choices day to day about which lives we will have to prioritize, which lives we will have to try to save,” Mr Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters at a media briefing at UN headquarters in New York on 12 March. The UN relief chief’s remarks appear to refute the claims made by Mr Elon Musk, a top advisor to United States President Donald Trump and de facto head of the US Department of Government Efficiency, who on 4 March said in a post on the social media platform X that: “No one has died as result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding. No one.” According to media reports, the Trump administration last month announced plans to cut more than 90% of the foreign aid contracts of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as nearly $60 billion in overall US assistance worldwide. Media reports said the resulting funding freeze has effectively halted almost overnight thousands of US-funded programs worldwide. Media reports cited US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as saying that 83% of USAID programs had been cut and that the remaining aid programs have been moved to the State Department. In his remarks at the media briefing on 12 March, Mr Fletcher underscored that the international system is under greater threat than at any time since the Second World War. He said that for the humanitarian family, the challenges are particularly urgent, adding that “we were already overstretched, under-resourced and literally under attack, with last year being the deadliest year on record to be a humanitarian worker.” However, the UN relief chief said that it is far tougher for the more than 300 million people right now who need humanitarian support. “And so the pace and the scale of the funding cuts that we’ve faced are, of course, a seismic shock to the sector. Many will die because that aid is drying up,” said Mr Fletcher. Mr Fletcher said “across the humanitarian community, programmes are being stopped right now. Staff are being let go right now. I think 10 per cent of NGO colleagues were laid off in the course of February.” “And with resources slashed, our defining mission will have to become much clearer. We will have to save as many people as we can with the money we have – not the money that we had, nor the money that we would like,” he added. “We’ll have to build fresh arguments, fresh allies for our work. We’ll have to find new sources of funding. We’ll have to fight back. We’ll have to re-imagine what we do,” Mr Fletcher told reporters. “So yes, we’ll be retreating from much of our humanitarian work, but we won’t be retreating from our values and the values that underpin that mission. We’ll still need to call time on this era of impunity, end attacks on civilians and aid workers, and hold the perpetrators to account,” he added. “So we’ll need a humanitarian decade. We’ll have to win afresh that argument for humanitarian and international solidarity. And that is a cause which I believe is mightier than year-to-year fluctuations and political changes,” the UN relief chief emphasized. “We have been reliant in recent years – over-reliant – on US funding. Almost half of our appeals have been funded by the American taxpayers. And it is important to recognize that we shouldn’t ever take that for granted. Particularly, in a period of economic difficulty and in a period when, when many governments are in retreat from the world,” Mr Fletcher pointed out. In response to a question at the media briefing, he said: “But what I can say is that over years and decades now, the US has been a humanitarian superpower, and the US funding has saved hundreds of millions of lives. And so, I hope that over time, we can make the case afresh for why that work is so important, and that we can ensure that funding is resumed so we can carry on saving that number of lives.” Earlier on 10 March, Mr Fletcher, as head of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the highest-level humanitarian coordination forum of the UN system, in a “humanitarian reset”, proposed 10 actions on dealing with the funding crisis. These include putting people facing crises first, and providing as much funding as possible to local and national actors, as well as calling on the humanitarian coordinators to share strategies on how they will prioritize urgent life-saving actions. EFFECT OF US FUNDING CUTS The US government actions from freezing funds to terminating contracts have severely impacted the ability of UN agencies operating in many countries, particularly the crisis-stricken countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Sudan and Myanmar, to continue to provide essential services to vulnerable populations. According to an article by Jess Craig posted on the Vox Media website on 16 March, the US has provided more than $10 billion towards healthcare worldwide in 2024. According to the Vox article, among the impacts of the US foreign aid freeze are that some 3.8 million women have lost access to contraception worldwide; nearly a quarter of the population in Afghanistan, or 9 million people, will no longer receive US-funded healthcare services; and some 700,000 people in Burkina Faso and Mali no longer have access to water, food, or health services. The Vox article also said that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had to shut down its operations in South Africa, where 27 million people are at risk of hunger, as the country faces its worst drought in decades. Incidentally, the WFP on 14 March warned that more than one million people in Myanmar will be cut off from the UN agency’s lifesaving food assistance starting in April due to critical funding shortfalls. These cuts come just as increased conflict, displacement and access restrictions are already sharply driving up food aid needs, it said. According to WFP, without immediate new funding, the agency will only be able to assist 35,000 of the most vulnerable people, including children under the age of five, pregnant and breast-feeding women, and people living with disabilities. “The impending cuts will have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable communities across the country, many of whom depend entirely on WFP’s support to survive,” said Michael Dunford, the WFP’s Representative and Country Director in Myanmar. “WFP remains steadfast in its commitment to support the people of Myanmar, but more immediate funding is crucial to continue reaching those in need,” he added. WFP said the cuts will also impact almost 100,000 internally displaced people in central Rakhine who will have no access to food without WFP assistance, including Rohingya communities in camps. WFP said it urgently needs US$60 million to maintain its life-saving food assistance to the people of Myanmar this year. “WFP is calling on all partners to identify additional funding to meet the needs in Myanmar as the situation across the country continues to deteriorate,” said Dunford. “It is essential that the international community does not forget the people of Myanmar in their time of need, and respond immediately with adequate funding for WFP to restore life-saving aid,” he added. The US has also been a major donor towards providing lifesaving HIV treatment and related services to over 50 countries around the world, which have now been adversely impacted by the funding cuts, according to media reports. In fact, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) earlier on 13 February said that HIV clinics around the world have shuttered and HIV prevention and treatment programmes have been derailed. It warned that without funding from the US, within four years, 6.3 million people will die and 8.9 million will newly acquire HIV. Furthermore, it said around 370,000 babies will acquire HIV, and without treatment, half will not live to see their second birthday. UNAIDS said that even before the US announcement of a freeze in foreign aid funding, the AIDS response had a financing gap of US$9.5 billion, and that an estimated US$29.3 billion is needed to get countries back on track and end the AIDS pandemic by 2030. In a later update issued on 10 March, UNAIDS said although some US-funded projects received waivers, there have been several reports of waivers not leading to a resumption of services because payments to implementers have not been resumed. In some cases, waivers have been superceded by termination notices. For instance, UNAIDS said that in Ukraine, there are fears that a shipment of antiretrovirals (ARVs) en route to the country may get stuck in Poland because payment for the transport costs from Poland to Ukraine has not been confirmed. Civil society is negotiating with a potential donor to cover the costs from the Polish border, it added. UNAIDS said in Mali, the government allocated 120 million CFA Francs to affected community organizations to help them continue some of their activities and mitigate the negative effects of the US funding cuts. It also said that the Kenyan government is reallocating domestic resources to support priority HIV programmes. In Namibia, some service providers received waivers but they have not received any additional funding since the initial stop-work order. As a result, some have notified staff of impending layoffs, it added. Also in February, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency responsible for sexual and reproductive health, expressed deep regret over the termination of all funding agreements by the US government. A statement issued by the UNFPA Executive Director on 28 February said that 48 grants, totaling approximately $377 million, were awarded for UNFPA to provide critical maternal health care, protection from violence, rape treatment and other life-saving care in over 25 crisis-stricken countries and territories, including Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza, Mali, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine. It said that the vast majority of US funding supported UNFPA’s work in emergency settings. The termination includes 16 grants for which UNFPA had received a humanitarian waiver. (On 4 March, UNFPA said that it had received “rescission of termination” notices for seven USAID projects in Afghanistan, Haiti, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sudan, the Regional Syria Response, and Ukraine, totaling approximately $89 million, which enabled the UN agency to resume these programmes. However, the remaining 41 projects still remain terminated.) UNFPA said over the last four years, these life-saving investments prevented more than 17,000 maternal deaths, 9 million unintended pregnancies and nearly 3 million unsafe abortions by expanding access to voluntary family planning. UNFPA has also reached over 13 million women and young people with sexual and reproductive health services like cervical cancer screening, contraception counselling and prenatal and safe childbirth care. According to the statement, this “devastating decision” will force thousands of health clinics to close. Women in crisis zones will be forced to give birth without medicines, midwives or equipment, putting their lives and their babies’ lives in jeopardy, it said. Furthermore, it said that rape survivors will be denied counselling and medical care, while midwives delivering babies in the world’s worst humanitarian crises will lose their ability to function. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) on 17 March said that it is deeply concerned that funding shortages could force the closure of 80% of WHO-supported essential health care services in Afghanistan. Millions, including vulnerable populations such as women, children, the elderly, the displaced and returnees, will be left without access to critical medical care, it warned. As of 4 March 2025, 167 health facilities had shut down due to funding shortages, cutting off lifesaving medical care to 1.6 million people across 25 provinces, WHO reported. Without urgent intervention, over 220 more facilities could close by June 2025, leaving an additional 1.8 million Afghans without access to primary health care, it warned. In the worst affected regions – Northern, Western and Northeastern Afghanistan – more than a third of health care centres have shut down, raising alarms about an imminent humanitarian crisis, said WHO. “These closures are not just numbers on a report, they represent mothers unable to give birth safely, children missing lifesaving vaccinations, entire communities left without protection from deadly disease outbreaks,” said WHO Representative and Head of Mission in Afghanistan, Dr Edwin Ceniza Salvador. “The consequences will be measured in lives lost,” he warned. According to WHO, Afghanistan is already battling multiple health emergencies, including outbreaks of measles, malaria, dengue, polio and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. Without functioning health facilities, efforts to control these diseases are severely hindered, it pointed out. Over 16,000 suspected measles cases, including 111 deaths, were reported in the first two months of 2025, it said. With immunization rates at critically low levels (only 51% for the first dose of the measles vaccine and 37% for the second), children are at heightened risk of preventable illness and death, said the UN agency. It also said that disruptions to WHO-led coordination mechanisms prevent health partners from tracking disease outbreaks, allocating resources and delivering essential services and threaten to push the country’s already fragile health care system deeper into crisis. While some donors continue to support Afghanistan’s health sector, funding has been significantly reduced as development aid priorities have shifted, it further said. The needs, however, remain immense, and current support is not enough to sustain critical health care services for millions of Afghans. “This is not just about funding. It is a humanitarian emergency that threatens to undo years of progress in strengthening Afghanistan’s health system,” said Dr Salvador. “Every day that passes without our collective support brings more suffering, more preventable deaths and lasting damage to the country’s health care infrastructure.” +
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