Charities are calling on the British government for greater support as they report the loss of millions of dollars as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Oxfam said it is losing ￡5 million (US$6.2 million) a month from the closure of its shops alone, while Christian Aid last week said it expected a ￡6 million drop in its funds this financial year.
Others said they were still calculating the impact.
Bond, the UK international development network, wants the government to establish a stabilization fund so organizations can survive and continue to deliver aid to people living in refugee camps or in extreme poverty.
Major development charities contacted by the Guardian said they expect to see a significant drop in funding because of the closure of charity shops, no face-to-face fundraising and the cancelation of key events, such as music festivals and the London Marathon.
UK charities would need ￡4 billion to cover the funding lost because of the pandemic, Bond chief operating officer Graham MacKay said.
“At least ￡320 million of this should be made available to charities working internationally,” he said.
The majority of the development sector would not be eligible for the ￡750 million pot recently announced for front-line charities.
“Nobody should be left behind during this humanitarian crisis, but who is going to help get society’s most vulnerable people through this if charities collapse?” MacKay said.
“Many charities have seen their income hit hard because of the crisis,” Oxfam director of engagement Nicola Tallett said.
“Oxfam is no exception. It’s too early to say what the overall impact will be, but the closure of the shops alone means we are losing ￡5 million a month,” she said.
Oxfam is furloughing about two-thirds of its UK workforce, including most shop staff.
Anticipating a drop in unrestricted income, Christian Aid is to furlough 20 percent of UK staff to protect country programs and international staff.
Other personnel are moving to four-day weeks, with leaders taking temporary salary cuts.
The British Department for International Development has announced a ￡200 million package of COVID-19 support, the majority of which would go to UN agencies.
Just ￡20 million is assigned for international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including UK development charities, which is insufficient to plug the shortfall.
Concern Worldwide UK executive director Danny Harvey said that as well as supporting NGOs to contribute to the global response to COVID-19, the department should show flexibility to support core costs — which can include staff and office costs — and continue to maintain funding for other projects that might have been suspended because of coronavirus restrictions.
“It is vital we can continue to work and recover quickly from the effects of the pandemic in the countries where we work,” she said.
Concern said it had implemented a number of cost-saving measures, including graduated reductions to staff salaries across the board and a voluntary option for staff to work reduced hours.
“Now more than ever support is needed to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in vulnerable and poor communities already suffering due to conflict, disaster and climate change, and to help them cope with growing risks of hunger and even greater poverty due to the pandemic,” Tallett said.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS