UN food, refugee agencies face massive cuts following demise of USAID and billions in funding losses

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00:00We can now bring in Avril Benoit, Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders USA.

00:05Thank you so much for joining us on the program today.

00:08Now, since Donald Trump has come into office, we have seen, of course, the Department of

00:13Government Efficiency in action, making deep cuts to things like USAID.

00:19How has that affected your work at Doctors Without Borders in the US?

00:24Well, around the world, Doctors Without Borders, or as we're known internationally,

00:29Médecins Sans Francières, or MSF, we're not funded at all by the US government,

00:34so we're not directly affected.

00:36But we're indirectly affected, and it comes in the form of the cuts to Ministries of Health,

00:43so the bilateral funding that the US government would have offered.

00:47It comes in the form of some of the subsidies and grants that were going to local health

00:53organizations and international, non-governmental, humanitarian organizations,

00:58who have now had to close, have withdrawn from areas of great need.

01:04We are seeing this as a human-made disaster that will have dire consequences for people's

01:11health around the world.

01:12Can you give me a concrete example of a project that has been impacted in the US, for instance?

01:17Well, we don't do operations in the United States.

01:21We're an international humanitarian organization working mostly in crisis zones, in instances

01:28of outbreaks, instances of failed states where perhaps the health systems have collapsed.

01:34So we're there as a support to the national and local health providers.

01:39I can give you one example, Sudan.

01:42So you've got a war, a conflict that has been going on now for a couple of years, 11 million

01:47people displaced.

01:48And in parts of Sudan, you have community kitchens that were funded by USAID.

01:55As a consequence of them no longer having funding, you have a much higher likelihood of malnutrition.

02:02And already we know that in Sudan, the malnutrition rates are absolutely shocking.

02:06We have cuts to some of the HIV-AIDS support programs through the PEPFAR program.

02:13We have cuts to programs that were providing safe drinking water for people in Portal Press

02:20and in Haiti, where so many are displaced by the violence between the gangs and the police.

02:26So around the world, we have instances and examples of places where some of the services,

02:33the life-saving services that had been available to people that even we relied on as health care

02:38providers in partnership with others, those services have been withdrawn.

02:42And so it's a much greater burden then on those who remain behind, including the ministries

02:48of health, the departments of health, the public health workers, who are trying to struggle

02:52now without all those partnerships that often made their work possible to save lives.

02:58You mentioned how you are indirectly affected by those cuts that have come to USAID and the

03:07budgets that have essentially been scrapped.

03:09Have you been forced, has Doctors Without Borders been forced to let go of staff or cut some

03:15projects?

03:18Well, it's quite the opposite.

03:19Because we're privately funded by millions of supporters around the world, we're still on

03:24the ground.

03:25And what we're experiencing is an increase in need, an increase in needs that we feel

03:31compelled to respond to with the means that we already have, thanks to the generosity of

03:37private donors.

03:38But we're deeply concerned about this man-made disaster in terms of the cuts to U.S. government

03:43funding, because we can see the impacts in terms of those referral hospitals, the arrangements

03:50that we often had with other organizations, just think of water and sanitation as a basic

03:56thing.

03:57When you have organizations that were funded by the U.S. government that were providing

04:02safe drinking water and perhaps doing interventions for cholera, perhaps oral reach hydration points

04:09or early intervention health posts around the communities.

04:13When those are gone, somebody who has cholera will have to travel a much further distance

04:19to reach perhaps the cholera treatment center that we're running.

04:23And so that puts a burden on us then to see what can we do to address the water and sanitation

04:27issues and do some of the prevention activities without all the supports of the whole infrastructure

04:34that was made possible to other organizations and the ministries of health.

04:38So in our case, what we're worried about is a 30 percent increase in patients in some

04:45of our clinics and hospitals.

04:47We're worried about increasing pressures on our supplies, which cost all the more in our

04:52projections because of the tariff wars that are looming.

04:55We have certainly a lot of concerns about the need to intervene in places where others are

05:01withdrawing.

05:02And that includes places like Sudan.

05:04It includes places like Ethiopia, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo.

05:10In DRC, you had the U.S. government was funding 70 percent of the humanitarian response in the

05:16east.

05:16So you can imagine that these cuts are devastating.

05:20And for those who remain behind, like Doctors Without Borders, it's a burden.

05:24It becomes an ethical question.

05:27How much more can we do with the means that we still currently have?

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