From his base in Kenya, Dr. Elias Girma contemplates the impact of U.K. aid cuts on promises to provide lifesaving contraception and family planning across East Africa.
“Absolutely there is anger, it’s an injustice,” he says. “It will mean continuing the cycle of poverty, adolescents not being able to delay having a child, perhaps suffering the complications of an unsafe abortion, protracted illness, and possibly death.”
The U.K. announced a third year of aid cuts in July, and Girma — director of the Women's Integrated Sexual Health Programme, or WISH, a program funded by the United Kingdom to offer sexual and reproductive health services — has seen the consequences all too clearly.