Save the Children International sees 15% spike in income in 2021

Save the Children International’s income jumped 15% to $1.3 billion in 2021 compared to the year before, the London-based humanitarian organization said in its latest annual report. Save the Children International is the central body for nonprofit affiliates in countries around the world. The accounts show that its sources of funding changed from 2020. Donations from member organizations in the United States jumped by about $95 million, the 100-year-old charity said, but funding from the United Kingdom fell by nearly $30 million. The fastest growing contributions came from Italy, which doubled funding from $35.3 million to $71.8 million. In April, data from the British government showed that its aid budget fell by £4.6 billion to £11.5 in 2021 following the decision to slash development spending to 0.5% of gross national income from the original target of 0.7%. The U.K.’s Institute of Development Studies said at the time that the decline of international development spending by the U.K. was at “its lowest level since 2013.” The U.S. Agency for International Development continued to be the largest institutional donor to Save the Children, contributing $259 million last year. The British government contributed only $17 million. Nearly half of the cash went to humanitarian efforts with the rest to development, Save the Children said. Education garnered the highest amount of spending at $342 million, a 21% jump from the previous year. East and southern Africa as a region was the largest recipient of Save the Children funding last year at $423 million, an 8% increase from 2020, with the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia topping the list garnering more than $100 million. “Almost half of this increase reflects increased funding for South Sudan for scaling up our humanitarian response to hunger, flooding and conflict,” the charity said in the report. Latin America and the Caribbean region saw the highest rate of spending increase with expenditure growing by 58% to $96 million from $61 million in 2020. “This was largely due to an increase in spend in on our response to the Venezuelan migrant crisis, which led to an increase in all country offices, most notably in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru,” the organization said. As part of its efforts to assist with the crisis in Ukraine, Save the Children said it had registered a new subsidiary in Poland, in April 2022, in partnership with local organizations. It said it has also increased its presence in Ukraine’s other neighboring countries. “More than 5.5 million people have now fled the war in Ukraine to neighbouring countries, and almost half of them are children. A child from Ukraine has become a refugee almost every single second of the war. Save the Children is strategically placed to respond to children at all levels of the crisis,” wrote Inger Ashing, CEO at Save the Children International.