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US ends funding for four Swiss-run children’s aid projects

USA ends funding for four children's aid organization projects
US ends funding for four children's aid organization projects. Keystone-SDA

The United States has definitively ended its funding for four projects run by the children's aid organisation Terre des hommes. The aid projects in Egypt, India, Kenya and Lebanon are affected.

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Information on further projects in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Burkina Faso is still pending, the Lausanne-based aid organisation announced on Thursday. The 90-day payment freeze imposed at the end of January has already had serious consequences.

According to Terre des hommes, numerous activities in nine countries have already had to be halted. The payment freeze also affected the contracts of 440 employees, some of which had to be terminated. According to the information, 194 of these employees were employed entirely thanks to payments from the US.

+ US aid cuts force Swiss NGO to lay off 100 staff

Terre des hommes wrote that the agreed financial support totalling $5.8 million (CHF5.2 million) has now been discontinued with immediate effect, most of which has not yet been paid. The US contributions correspond to around 10% of the organisation’s annual budget.

The children’s aid organisation will attempt to at least partially compensate for the loss of funding through alternative means from civilian, institutional, private and state sources.

+ US withdrawal from WHO puts global health in jeopardy

The definitive and short-term termination of already agreed payments will have drastic global consequences for children in need of protection, marginalised groups and minorities as well as people on the run, it added.

Projects for the distribution of medicines and food vouchers, health services, the accompaniment of traumatised minors on the run or measures in the fight against forced and child marriages would be affected, it said.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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