Devex Newswire: Are UK aid cuts to Sudan and the current crisis linked?

Experts this week told a British parliamentary committee that the United Kingdom aid cuts to Sudan — where it was once a major donor — contributed to a breakdown of monitoring and communications that might have helped officials predict the outbreak of the current armed conflict between rival factions of Sudan’s military. Also in this edition: Global health advocates fall short of their goal to increase funding for hepatitis treatments and vaccines, and flash flooding adds to the Horn of Africa’s woes following a record-breaking drought. Put to rights The consequences of U.K. aid cuts are becoming clearer in Sudan. U.K. aid to Sudan totaled £223 million, or roughly $276 million, in 2021-22. It fell to just £31.5 million in 2022-23. And no funding beyond £5 million ($6.2 million) already pledged in relief funding is scheduled for 2023-24, my colleague William Worley reports. Those cuts translated to decreased investment in communicating with civilians and civil society groups on the ground who could have warned embassy officials of the brewing troubles in Sudan, Kholood Khair, founding director of the think tank Confluence Advisory, said during a hearing in front of the U.K. Parliament's International Development Committee this week. Fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, triggering a humanitarian crisis that has left more than half of Sudan’s population in need of aid and protection. The “diplomatic community was caught unawares by this [war] precisely because they didn’t listen to humanitarian organizations,” Khair said. Read: Experts link UK aid cuts to crisis in Sudan at parliamentary hearing + Check out our page dedicated to our coverage of U.K. aid. Great expectations The inaugural Global Hepatitis Resource Mobilization Conference that took place in Geneva this week appeared to have so far fumbled its goal to drum up a significant number of new pledges to prevent and treat hepatitis. The conference – co-hosted by The Hepatitis Fund, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – kicked off a campaign Wednesday to raise an initial $150 million “but very few commitments had been made by the end of the day,” Rebecca Root reports for Devex. Read: High hopes but low pledges for hepatitis conference in Geneva + Devex will be hosting a series of timely discussions on global health on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly in Geneva next week. Register now to attend in person or online via the livestream on May 24-25. The battle isn’t over While many people celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on Wednesday, it’s important to remember that political oppression against members of the LGBTQ+ community is on the rise in many countries, Lois Chingandu, interim executive director of Frontline AIDS, writes in an op-ed for Devex. Chingandu notes that Ugandan legislators passed an anti-homosexuality bill that would impose the death penalty for some same-sex acts and lengthy prison sentences for the promotion of homosexuality, which they said was “to protect our children and our country.” There are 67 countries that still criminalize same-sex relations — nearly half of them in Africa. Additionally, 92 countries criminalize HIV nondisclosure, exposure, and transmission. “We know that these laws undermine efforts to prevent new HIV infections and to ensure that people living with HIV can access testing and treatment to keep them healthy,” according to Chingandu, who added that she worries her gay son “can be hunted down and killed like an animal.” Opinion: As repression mounts, who will protect our LGBTQ+ children? ICYMI: How foreign aid supported anti-LGBTQ+ advocates in Uganda Change is gonna come “Historic” was how the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development summed up the outcome of the lender’s annual meeting in Uzbekistan yesterday. It passed three resolutions: Changing its founding document to allow it to lend in sub-Saharan Africa and Iraq, agreeing to decide on a potential capital increase to support Ukraine by the end of this year, and changing how it manages its leverage limits to follow G-20 recommendations. The sub-Saharan Africa move — initially focused on Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal — has been under consideration for about five years, but COVID-19 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine both slowed the process as some shareholders argued EBRD was needed in its traditional backyard of central and Eastern Europe, according to my colleague Vince Chadwick. We (and the other banks, no doubt) will be watching once EBRD begins its investments there — no sooner, it said, than 2025. Ghana make it Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta says the $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout deal we reported on yesterday is a positive “signal” to other African nations in debt crises. The first tranche, for $600 million, is due to come immediately — and development partners like the World Bank may soon also be able to increase support, my colleague Shabtai Gold tells me. Ofori-Atta told reporters Thursday that he hopes to return the country to “strength, prosperity, and resilience ... and emerge stronger than before.” Still, he conceded that this IMF program is the 17th in the country's 60-year history since independence and is a source of “anxiety” for people in the country, as they wonder whether they can truly escape the cycle of boom and bust. It's a reminder that just as getting into a debt mess takes years, exiting one is not done overnight either. Related reading: How the debt crisis imperils development — and why it's getting worse (Pro) + Start your 15-day free trial of Devex Pro today to unlock the piece and also gain access to all our exclusive reporting and analysis. Crisis management As we reported recently, the World Bank was working to set up a new crisis facility to help the world’s lowest-income countries cope with shocks like food price inflation and natural disasters. The bank's board on Thursday approved the mechanism. "The poorest and most vulnerable have been hit hardest" by the latest wave of events, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the bank said in a statement. However, this hardly solves the issue of the so-called IDA cliff which refers to the shortfall in available cash at the International Development Association, the bank's fund for the lowest-income nations. This at least is meant to help stem some of the damage. You can read the details on the crisis facility in our scoop from last month. ICYMI: World Bank creating new fund for the poorest nations, Ukraine Recap: ‘Solidarity’ is key to facing multiple crises, World Bank official says (Pro) When it rains, it pours The good news is that rain has finally come to the Horn of Africa, which has experienced one of the longest and most severe droughts on record. The bad news is that the rainfall has caused flash flooding in some parts of the region, creating a new kind of disaster. Rather than improving the situation, in many cases, the rains have driven more people to displacement camps already overwhelmed by those who fled en masse from rural areas over the course of the drought, experts said during a webinar hosted by Mercy Corps and moderated by my colleague Sara Jerving. People often go to those camps as a last resort after losing everything, explained Daud Jiran, Mercy Corps’ Somalia country director. “We don’t see that people are seeing the rains as an opportunity to go back,” he said. “In a way the situation now might even be worse than it was a few months back, because it rained for these people, but they have nothing to go back to — and the few [bits of] humanitarian support they were getting will end in the next few months. So what will happen?” Read: Long-awaited rainfall in the Horn of Africa creates a new disaster In other news Delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance intended for people affected by Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar faces delay as it awaits the ruling military junta’s approval. [New York Times] China holds its first Central Asia summit just as the G-7 meeting kicks off in Japan, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to make an appearance. [Foreign Policy and Politico] United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths has condemned violations to an agreement made by warring parties in Sudan to protect civilians and civilian infrastructures and to allow delivery of much-needed aid. [France 24] Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.