Devex Newswire: EU slashes funding to the world’s poorest

European aid cuts have become a familiar refrain in recent years as belts tighten even though global challenges that need funding are mounting. Devex got a look at exactly where the ax will be falling.

Also in today’s edition: A new pot of money for Sudan’s local responders, and superbugs threatening the world’s food supply

Coming up:  Join us on Oct. 3 to hear from some of the officials and experts on the front line of the mpox response. Save your spot now!

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Au revoir, world

The European Commission is planning to cut €2 billion in its development spending — and from 2025 to 2027, the commission will slash the money it gives to the world’s lowest-income countries by 35%, my colleague Vince Chadwick exclusively reports.

According to an internal document Vince got a look at, Haiti is set to receive €5 million per year through 2027, down from an average allocation of €33 million per year from 2021-2024. The Central African Republic, meanwhile, will see as little as €12 million per year, down from €43 million in the previous budget.
While a commission spokesperson tells Devex that they would not comment on leaks — and that the budgetary planning process is still “ongoing” — Vince saw the numbers, and it’s not looking good. Assistance to countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean will drop by 26%, while Asia and the Pacific will see reductions of around 31%. The Americas and the Caribbean fare worst of all, with a 58% decrease.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Across Europe, several donor countries — including the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Germany — have shrunk their aid spending precipitously in recent months. Just last week, France announced another €1 billion cut to its foreign aid budget, the third in the last two years.
Scoop: The EU aid cuts revealed (Pro)

ICYMI: France slashes €1B more from aid budget (Pro)

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Migration frustration

It’s not just aid money that Europe is lacking. It’s also solutions, even when it comes to one of the biggest challenges facing the region today.

A recent audit has found that the European Union’s Emergency Trust for Africa — an EU development fund working to reduce migrant crossings from the continent — is “still unable to say which approaches are the most efficient and effective” for driving down irregular migration. That’s despite eight years of trying to do so, and €4.5 billion spent.

The audit also criticizes the European Commission for focusing on outputs, such as the number of job courses provided, instead of outcomes, such as whether securing work actually dissuades people from dangerous migration. The audit said the fund exaggerated how successful the program was — while lacking reporting, recording, and follow-up when it comes to human rights violations.

Read: After 8 years, EU fund still does not know how to curb migration

Changing the game

Across the pond, donors are hoping another approach might be more successful: The Coalition for Mutual Aid in Sudan. Announced on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the coalition — which is spearheaded by 15 philanthropies, including the Gates Foundation — aims to drive direct, flexible emergency grants to local responders across Sudan.

The announcement came right before a high-level meeting on Sudan, where a civil war has killed up to 150,000 people since April of last year. While the meeting generated “heartening” new funding commitments from global donors, those commitments were “tempered” by the fact that funds pledged at an April conference in Paris still haven’t fully materialized, Katy Crosby, senior director of U.S. policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps, told Devex.

The underfunded response effort is rife with challenges, including warring parties that have blocked humanitarian access; severe floods that further increase the vulnerability of internally displaced people and strain the communities hosting them; a “very kinetic” conflict with rapidly changing risks; telecommunications shutdowns; and a worsening economic situation that threatens even cash-based humanitarian programming, Crosby said.

She called the situation “a horrible microcosm of so many of the challenges we face in a humanitarian response — in a context of very little international attention and support.”

Crosby said the August reopening of the Adre border crossing to allow humanitarian assistance is a positive sign, but added that the humanitarian community should not get “sucked into a nickel and diming situation” of negotiating piecemeal access to the world’s single largest population of internally displaced people.

Read: New Sudan coalition aims to channel help to local responders

ICYMI: US lawmakers push for more funding — and leadership — for Sudan

Holy cow

Antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when bacteria, fungi, or viruses become resistant to antibiotics, was thrown into the spotlight at last week’s UNGA. Leaders from across the world highlighted how AMR takes one million lives every year — but according to a recent report, even that death toll might just be the tip of the iceberg.

AMR could cripple global livestock populations, writes my colleague Ayenat Mersie, whose reporting indicates that global gross domestic product losses could total nearly $1 trillion and put the food supply of about 2 billion people at risk.

Last week, global leaders agreed to a political declaration on AMR, a 15-page document outlining how the world must respond to it. The declaration called for reducing the human death toll by 10% by 2030 and raising $100 million to ensure countries develop funded, national action plans to combat AMR by the same deadline.

The need to include livestock wasn’t lost either: The declaration included a commitment to “meaningfully reduce” the quantity of antimicrobials used in the agri-food system, while pushing for water, sanitation, and hygiene protocols — among other good practices, such as animal vaccination plans — that would curb the need for antibiotics in the first place.

“I think we've got all the ingredients that we need. We now need to take this forward into countries,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder and president of the One Health Trust, speaking at a Devex event on the sidelines of UNGA. “This is a very solvable problem.”

Read: AMR in livestock could threaten food security for 2 billion by 2050

ICYMI: Antimicrobial resistance is a ‘solvable problem,’ but needs momentum

UNGA corner

Still catching up from last week? We’ve got you covered. Our team was on the ground in New York to catch some of the most influential people in the sector — and through both our Devex @ UNGA 79 news summit and a special series of podcasts, we asked them what trends, challenges, and opportunities our readers should be paying attention to.
Here’s what they had to say:

• Change is coming: The U.N. Security Council is a 15-member group with a big job: ensuring peace and security across the world. For years, the global north has dominated the Security Council’s operations — and for years, reforming the council has been under discussion at the U.N. Last week the director of the U.N.’s Summit of the Future, Michèle Griffin, told my colleague Colum Lynch that such changes are closer than ever.

Tune in: Is UN Security Council reform coming, and what could it mean?

• Pass the bug spray: Mosquitoes aren’t making things easy for the global health community — nor is climate change, parasitic resistance, and a new species of everyone’s least favorite insect. The U.S. global malaria coordinator, David Walton, broke down those challenges last week and explained how the U.S. malaria initiative is trying to combat them in a conversation with my colleague Michael Igoe.

Watch the event: US malaria initiative ‘having to invest much more’ with climate change

• How can humanitarians better prevent the weaponization of food aid? At a time when millions are facing catastrophic levels of hunger, Colum asked several experts that very question. The answer? Better oversight, more investigations, and a diversification of both funding and humanitarian responders, among a number of other ideas for how to turn such ideas into action.

Watch the discussion: Food as a weapon in the new age of starvation

In other news

The World Bank has approved $1.57 billion in loans to Nigeria for three projects targeting maternal and child health, primary health care, and climate resilience. [Bloomberg]

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously extended a multinational police mission in Haiti for another year as the country struggles to contain gang violence. [Al Jazeera]

Médecins Sans Frontières reported treating over 25,000 sexual violence victims in displacement camps in eastern Congo last year. [AP]

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