Children, refugees and displaced people worldwide are paying the price for the deep-seated funding crisis that has engulfed the international aid sector, made worse by pronounced cuts in Washington, the UN children's and refugee agencies said on Friday.
Spokespersons for UNICEF and UNHCR in Geneva warned that the liquidity crunch has jeopardized lifesaving work, including progress in reducing child mortality, which has fallen by 60 per cent since 1990.
By slashing severe acute malnutrition by one-third since 2000, UNICEF's efforts have kept 55 million children alive, through simple interventions, it insisted.
"There are ways in which we can still be optimistic if we know that we can do it," said Kitty van der Heijden, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director said from Abuja, Nigeria.
But that work can only get done with the support of a "conveyor belt" of partners in government, philanthropy, and the private sector.
Donors are essential to delivering lifesaving assistance to children and mothers worldwide, Ms. Van der Heijden insisted: "We never do this alone."
Advances being rolled back
But these gains are now at risk of being rolled back by recent pullouts, she warned, adding that the issue does not lie with a single benefactor.
"It is the fact that it's a cumulative set of donors that are doing this. That really risks rolling back that progress," she said.
"These decisions have impacts on real children, real lives every day in the here and now."
Due to funding shortages, around 1.3 million children could lose access to life-saving support and ready-to-use therapeutic foods this year in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
In 2025, some 213 million children in 146 countries will need lifesaving humanitarian support, according to the UNICEF spokesperson.
Supply chain break down
In the Afar region of northeast Ethiopia, UNICEF runs 30 mobile clinics - which Ms. van der Heijden visited last week and described as a "sheet under a shaded tree".
The facilities, aimed at supporting impoverished pastoralist communities that are on the move, provide pregnant and lactating mothers as well as children with the "bare minimum", she said, including supplementary vitamin A, iron deficiency, malnutrition and malaria treatments.
Only seven out of these 30 clinics remain, with the others shut by the wave of financial cutbacks.
"Without new funding, we will run out of our supply chain by May," she said. "And that means that 70,000 children in Ethiopia depend on this type of treatment cannot be served."
Similarly, in Nigeria, UNICEF could run out of supplies between this month and May.
Beyond treatment, prevention
Investing in prevention, nutrient supplementation and early screenings is also crucial to preventing more unnecessary deaths.
"It's not just about the treatment. We have to be able to prevent it getting to this stage."
Earlier this week, Ms. van der Heijden visited a Nigerian hospital and saw a child so malnourished that his skin was peeling off.
"That's the level of malnutrition that we're seeing here," she said, stressing the importance of prevention.
"As needs are rising, we need the global community to step up to the plate, to rise to the occasion, to keep investing in the art of the possible," Ms. Van der Heijden stressed, adding that UNICEF will not retreat.
"All over the world, the price is the same. It's children that bear the brunt of decisions in capitals."
Failing the children
"If you're holding a child that is about to die of a totally preventable, treatable disease. It is nothing short of heartbreaking," said Ms. van der Heijden. "We should not allow the global community to fail children in this way."
The severe financial crisis underway is also posing a security risk to staff, hampering humanitarians' ability to deliver.
UNHCR downsizing operations
Finding itself in a similar position, UNHCR has also announced cuts to operations and programmes.
It is the latest agency to face painful cutbacks in the field and at headquarters following the announcement of a drastic drawdown in funding from the United States Government.
"The biggest concern that we have is, of course, in all of this for refugees, for the displaced, they will be feeling the brunt of these cuts," said Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesperson for UNHCR.
Mr. Saltmarsh said the agency was conducting a review to determine how many staff would have to be let go.
UNHCR has already has to halt multiple initiatives including in South Sudan, Bangladesh and Europe, and closed offices in countries like Türkiye.
In Ethiopia, the organization has suspended operations at a safehouse for women facing death threats, Mr. Saltmarsh said.
"In South Sudan, only 25 per cent of the dedicated spaces supported by UNHCR for women and girls at risk of violence are currently operational. That has left some 80,000 people without access to services like emergency psychosocial support and legal and medical assistance."
