Bangkok, Thailand – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) unanticipatedly informed Cambodia’s Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance that funding for its tuberculosis program had been halted for 90 days.
KHANA, as the NGO is more commonly known, detects about 10, 000 tuberculosis (TB) cases each year, providing preventive treatment to some 10, 000 close contacts and medical care for some 300 rural patients, according to executive director, Choub Sok Chamreun.
With funding drying up, many rural Cambodians will soon lose care, Chamreun , said.
These people will experience a service interruption during the suspension period because we have been asked to stop working, Chamreun told Phnom Penh’s Al Jazeera.
“We expect these people will not have services, and they could lose follow-up for their TB treatment”.
“Normally … they receive support for treatment, mental health support, and regular follow-ups because]they] are living in rural communities, so they depend very much on the support from our community health workers”, he added.
As US President Donald Trump moves to effectively end USAID under a radical cost-cutting initiative spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, KHANA is just one of many charities and nonprofit organizations in Southeast Asia that are concerned about their work.
USAID, the largest single provider of humanitarian aid in the world, gave $ 86 million to the region in the last year alone. The agency operates in six out of Southeast Asia’s 11 countries – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The region’s nearly 700 million-habitant population is largely influenced by the level of economic development there.
While Singapore has one of the richest economies in the world and relies heavily on foreign aid, countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar have economies in the bottom quartile or lower.
USAID projects support healthcare, economic development, humanitarian assistance, education, and support for “democracy, human rights, and governance”, according to an archived page from the agency’s now-defunct website.
Many of these initiatives are managed by small, neighborhood-based NGOs like KHANA.
Much, if not all, of that assistance is now on the chopping block as Trump and Musk, who has called USAID a “criminal organisation”, work to dismantle the agency at lightning speed.
All direct hire or permanent USAID employees have 30 days to travel back to the US and are eligible for administrative leave as of Friday.
According to multiple media reports, Trump intends to run a skeleton version of the agency, which is currently being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an acting capacity out of a pool of about 10,000 employees.
Since the US Congress passed a law enshrined the agency’s independence as an independent body, critics have criticized the agency’s removal through executive action as unconstitutional.
A Thai employee claimed that the organization had already shut down the majority of its healthcare facilities in order to help Myanmar refugees.
The nonprofit’s staffer, who requested anonymity, claimed that the organization had reduced its activities to just two centers, discharged patients in stable condition, and transferred critical patients to Thai hospitals with their limited non-US funding.
While the organisation will continue to treat tuberculosis, HIV and malaria, and a small number of patients in-house, many of its operations will need to be taken over by the Thai government, the staff member said.
Some refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar rely heavily on US funding, such as the Mae Lae Refugee Camp, which reported to Al Jazeera that they only had weeks of food left.
Emilie Palamy Pradichit, the director of the Bangkok-based Manushya Foundation, which describes its mission as advancing human rights and social justice, painted a grim picture of the situation in Thailand.
Since January, we have 35 activists and their families relying on our rapid response fund to fight transnational repression, according to Pradichit.
“We have until the end of the month, and if we don’t receive those funds, we won’t be able to keep them at those safe houses … , We are putting them at risk”.
According to Pradichit, “development aid is the end of it.”
A former employee of USAID who previously worked in Southeast Asia shared Pradichit’s pessimism.
“All of the implementing partners]contractors and NGOs] are clueless because there is no information. All that’s been received is a stop work order, and there’s been no follow-up. The smaller contractors or NGOs are going under”, the USAID employee told Al Jazeera, asking not to be named due to fears of professional repercussions.
“The assumption right now is this 90-day]suspension] is not real. They’re bleeding the programmes dry because, per USAID regulation, for an NGO, you’re not allowed to have more than a 30-day reserve of funding”, the employee said, explaining a stipulation that organisations must follow to receive USAID support.
Some members of the NGO community and even some USAID supporters have acknowledged that the organization needs to be improved in order to streamline operations and effectiveness, but shutting it down is not the best course of action.
“Some of the statements made by Musk and Rubio are accurate. They’ve]USAID] been getting so much money … But the local organisations are getting crumbs”, an employee with a Thailand-based NGO, who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera.
“Many things don’t make it to the front lines.” They]USAID] are powerful instruments to development but need reform. However, the way they are closing down is awkward and hurtful because small NGOs are the ones who most need funding.
“The impacts are going to be felt for some time, and some will be irreparable”, the employee added.
Phin Savey, the secretary-general of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, Cambodia’s oldest human rights organisation, said many of its programmes may have to be suspended until he can find alternative sources of funding.
“Without USAID, we want to keep working, but for most activities, we need the budget”, Savey told Al Jazeera.
Source: Aljazeera
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