UNHCR falls to aid cuts

THE announcement that the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) would be closing its Port of Spain office on August 31 was the first indication of how the dramatic US cuts on foreign aid will affect Trinidad and Tobago.

The financial uncertainties related to the budget cuts announced in February that targeted 90 per cent of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) foreign aid contracts and US$60 billion in other US assistance around the world have shaken aid agencies worldwide.

By the end of February, the Trump administration began cutting jobs at USAID, retaining 300 workers and firing thousands of full-time employees and contractors.

The US was the biggest spender on foreign aid, with US$9.5 billion budgeted for humanitarian aid in 2023, followed by the European Commission and Germany, who each spent US$2 billion.

The UNHCR has been operating in Trinidad and Tobago since 2016, and ramped up its programmes in response to the refugee influx from Venezuela. Of the 32,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Trinidad and Tobago, 86 per cent are from Venezuela.

Refugees seeking resettlement in the US, Canada and Australia will be managed directly by the host countries.

The global impact has been stunning.

Oxfam estimated in May that as many as 23 million children might lose access to education, and as many as 95 million people would lose access to basic healthcare. The agency worried that up to three million preventable deaths a year might follow the cuts.

The UN's HIV-AIDS programme terminated 1,952 doctors and 1,234 nurses in Kenya, dramatically scaling down services for HIV treatment, HIV prevention, TB, malaria, immunisation and family planning.

Malaria tests and drugs have ceased in Myanmar; where cases increased tenfold over the last four years.

The impact on a long list of affected nations is staggering as stop-work orders ripple through aid delivery organisations globally operating in the most vulnerable countries on the planet.

It's not as if the billions spent by the US were being offered only because it was the right thing to do. Aid on that scale positioned the US favourably through the delivery of soft power.

The roles and effect of medicines and guns in diplomacy are dramatically different.

By stepping in to assist ahead of rival nations, by strategically supporting development, by building the economies of allies and political partners, aid money is seen as a supportive, collaborative investment, not a tool of confrontation.

That US$9 billion is tiny compared to the US$997 billion that the US spends on its military. The only other countries spending anywhere near that sum are China's US$296 billion and Russia's US$109 billion.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US government will provide foreign aid that "makes sense and is aligned with our national interest."

There is no clarity about what that will mean in practice, but the outlook is not promising.