By: Christina Philips
An often-used statement is ‘we’re stronger together’. We use it at Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and we’ve seen how it works for us. Our 15 member agencies come together as Christians, compelled by our faith to serve people around the world living with the indignity of hunger, as we believe all are made in the image of God.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 tells us that “a threefold cord is not quickly broken”, because two are better than one, and three is even stronger.
Our members and their locally-based partners have found strength in coming together. They have seen the benefits of learning from each other, discussing different activities and approaches , and sharing ideas so they can serve more efficiently and effectively.
In the non-profit sector, we know that sharing our strengths and our assets helps our resources go further, improving results so that people we serve who are experiencing hunger can access better, more robust programs.
But this year, as many governments like the United States and the UK start cutting their aid budgets, the international development sector must continue its work with significantly less financial support. For the sake of the communities that rely on these programs, we must find ways to continue making a positive impact while the infrastructure is being dismantled.
These slashes to aid spending don’t just impact the independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs), but are also causing massive cuts to multilateral organizations. Multilaterals are large scale international organizations that have the purpose of addressing key global issues; they are managed cooperatively between the governments of multiple countries. Some are easily recognized globally, such as the United Nations International Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF), while others are more well known in specific geographic regions where their work may be more needed, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which helps refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDP) in over 171 countries.
Multilaterals have provided the infrastructure for NGOs like us to move forward in our mission efficiently, and to make your donations stretch even further where it matters most. In several countries around the world, our partners have benefited from access to storage, transportation, malnutrition treatment supplies, registration systems, and coordination efforts to ensure that efforts are not duplicated. Multilateral agencies also compile much of the key information that is used to identify areas with the greatest need, to ensure that we are programming in the right places.
Many who work in the international aid and development sector want to see improved results. In the 2023/2024 Human Development Report the cost of inefficiency is called out quite strikingly: “The human toll of mismanaged interdependence is huge – in lives lost or uprooted, in opportunities forgone, in feelings of despair.”
Abrupt and severe cuts to foreign aid will not result in improved efficiency but instead will greatly undermine the progress made in addressing global poverty. And the consequences will be devastating.
On a recent trip to South Sudan, I could see so clearly how the need to address hunger and poverty required organizations of various sizes, each doing their part to support some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
Our team flew from the capital city of Juba up to Aweil in the north of the country on a UNHAS (United Nations Humanitarian Air Services) flight. While refuelling our plane, we came across another UNHAS plane – a World Food Programme (WFP) cargo plane used to deliver food aid and other emergency supplies into more remote locations.
Christina Philips standing in front of the WFP plane in South Sudan.
South Sudan is a country where the temperature can reach up to 45 degrees Celsius – a blistering heat that leaves the ground sun-scorched and dry. But with land so dry, when the rain comes, it causes massive flooding – washing away homes, villages, and critical infrastructure such as roads.
When mass displacement occurs during a flood, imagine the cost of trying to deliver food across the country without the UN cargo planes that can carry tonnes of food to the places where it is most needed. Trucks stacked with food assistance are no longer able to make it through flooded, muddy roads, but with access to UN planes, organizations have a way to provide vital nutrition to people who may have been walking for days, with nothing but the clothes on their back.
In areas that experience hunger on a cyclical basis, such as South Sudan, WFP has warehouses to store food, and logistical systems that help reach remote areas, that are often used by our members’ partners. The cost of these warehouses and logistical systems is shared amongst small local organizations and larger multilaterals that often have a greater capacity to absorb higher costs.
A truck carrying emergency food assistance rations stuck in the mud following flooding in South Sudan. Photo: Francis Ayiga, Managing Director (Commodities Supplier – Aim Global)
As needs increase, we remain committed to doing all we can to support people living with the severity of hunger that makes families bolster meals with leaves, just to survive another day. Will NGOs still be able to provide support amidst international cuts to aid funding? Yes – but for fewer and fewer people.
Donation dollars won’t go as far – because as funding is reduced to both independent NGOs and multilaterals, it is expected that logistical costs will increase. Local partners will be forced to choose between helping more people with less food, or helping less people with an adequate amount of food. And once again, it is the people with the least who will pay the highest price for the decisions governments are making around the world – cutting support to the most vulnerable for the sake of less than 1% in their budget.
Already we are hearing reports of malnutrition clinics that serve thousands of young children shutting down, because funding to UNICEF was cut. Imagine turning desperate people away because you don’t have the resources, or shutting down a birthing clinic while wondering how many pregnant mothers will walk miles to see you – only to find the doors closed, and nobody to help. Is this the world we want to live in?
On our trip to South Sudan, the weight of this work – of serving in one of the poorest countries in the world – was visible as we met with our members’ local partners. They shared how they carry the emotional and spiritual burden of not being able to help everyone in need. With these cuts, these burdens will only increase.
Can we be stronger alone? The answer is no.
In our mission of ending global hunger, our ‘together’ requires a big circle: donors like you, churches, businesses, our members, their locally based partners, the Canadian government, other governments and multilateral organizations who provide critical infrastructure.
We are better together, and with a mission as significant as ending global hunger, we count it as a blessing to know we’re never in this alone.
Christina Philips is the director of resources and public engagement at the Foodgrains Bank. She recently returned from South Sudan with fellow Foodgrains Bank team members, where they witnessed the devastating impact of one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises.
