Oxfam head says ‘cruel’ US cuts were ‘without warning and without reason’

U.S. President Donald Trump has boasted of ending the conflict in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo with a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda. At the same time, he slashed the U.S. foreign assistance that comprised 70% of eastern DRC’s humanitarian funding. Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said, “You can’t do both at the same time.” Maxman, who just returned from visiting the DRC, witnessed the impact of the cuts firsthand. “What we saw was exactly what we expected, sadly — the cruelty, the immorality, the blunt instrument effect of cutting foreign assistance on the scale that it was cut,” Maxman said during an event on the Innovation Terrace of Devex Impact House, held on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly. Maxman said that when she arrived to meet with communities in the country, she thought she’d talk to a few groups. “Instead, hundreds, if not thousands, of people showed up because the way the cuts unfolded was so devastating to communities.” She said the local partners that Oxfam works with were struggling to explain to those communities why funding dried up overnight. “So even our local partners, the risks to them have increased dramatically. They were scared. They talked about all of the challenging harassment that they were receiving from multiple ends, all because of this set of cruel actions, without warning and without reason by the United States government.” While Oxfam doesn’t take money from governments, Maxman said the organization is “not immune” to the cuts. “The whole ecosystem is contracting and our work is harmed,” she said. “We’re having to tighten our belts and look at how we reposition. We are also ... bringing our voice [to see] how do we make this a more effective, efficient, and more durable system.”