Johannesburg (AP) – after four days President Donald Trump The executive order signed Freezing almost all US foreign aidsAn email message in the inbox in Claris Madhuko in the countryside of Zimbabwe fell. Stop all the activities immediately.
The letter confirmed the fears of Madhuko Trump’s return to office It may affect his organization’s efforts to save African girls from children’s marriages.
Many Africans knew that Trump’s expectations “America first” means their continent It is likely to be the last Among his priorities. But they did not expect a sudden stop to foreign aid from the world’s largest donor who stops money from the flow of large -scale projects such as response to diseases, girls’ education and free school lunch.
Reliable news and daily career, direct
Watch yourself-Yodel is the source of transition for daily news, entertainment and feeling.
Even after global anger prompted some exemptions to Trump’s order, sub -Saharan Africa can suffer more than any other region as most global aid stops for 90 days to review spending. The United States gave the region more than 6.5 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance last year.
For Madhuku and countless others, it has been damaged. The Youth Development and Community Development platform is one of the hundreds of small NGOs in Africa that receive assistance from the United States government-and at the end of the American people-to do a good job.
Without the help of us, the Madhuku group cannot provide about 100 volunteers of food and public transportation because they communicate with them to keep girls in school and outside early marriages.
“We had to stop everything, no warning, and no time to adapt. I can have Trump might have some justification in trying to calculate American taxpayers’ money … but he caused a disaster here,” said Madhuko.
The most successful foreign aid program in the world
For many in Africa, ideas immediately turned into the world’s most successful foreign aid program, The president’s emergency plan for AIDS reliefOr pepfar.
Over the course of two decades, the program with two parties has been credited with providing more than 25 million people, and the vast majority in Africa, the continent that was designed to help most of it.
“The World is puzzled”, the Minister of Health of South Africa, the country with most people Live with HIVHe said after freezing the United States on help.
The minister, Harun Motwalli, said that American funds funded nearly 20 % of the annual HIV/AIDS program of South Africa through Pepfar, and now the greatest response to one disease in history is threatened.
More than 8 million in South Africa lives with HIV, and the authorities say PePfar is helping to provide life -saving antiviral transaction to 5.5 million people per day.
HIV patients are removed
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio She announced that programs that provide “life saving” assistance, including medicine, medical services, food and shelter, will be exempted from freezing aid, although the qualification is immediately clear.
The United Nations AIDS program said that many organizations receiving PePfar were closed due to aid stopping and there was “lack of clarity and great uncertainty about the future.” Unds said: More than 20 million people worldwide are receiving HIV treatment with the support of PePfar.
In the largest city in South Africa, Johannesburg, and elsewhere, the facilities funded by Pepfar were still closed days after the announcement of exemptions and the referral of HIV patients to hospitals and government clinics.
In the largest town in Johannesburg, Sowito, workers at the Pepfar HIV, deported patients. And notice in the famous WITS RHI clinic, which serves adults and children with HIV, read: “We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this.”
The delays may be dangerous
Experts said that the effects of HIV programs are still unclear, but the consequences may be rapid, even dangerous.
“The drug, HIV diagnostic tests are also decisive to ensure treatment for those who need it,” said Charles Kenny, an older colleague at the Washington World Development Center in Washington.
Kenny said the short interruptions of anti -viral therapy – which stops the frequent virus in the body – is risky.
He said: “The viral loads of HIV are thrived in about three weeks if they come out of antivirals.”
In general, even senior officials in the relief community are not sure of the United States’ programs to continue its operations for at least a short period.
The Trump administration has warned contractors and employees of the US Agency for International Development-the agency responsible for the dispersion of America’s foreign aid-they can be disciplined if they speak to anyone outside the agency without approval at the highest level, and the assistance groups fear money loss permanently if they speak publicly.
Stopping aid in war areas
A humanitarian official told Associated Press that at least 1.2 million people In the Congo You can lose life -saving support due to the freezing of aid. The official, who spoke, provided that his identity was not disclosed because they were not allowed to speak publicly about this, said that nearly half of their funding from the American Agency for International Development.
In general, more than $ 100 million has been suspended for the humanitarian programs of the organization in more than 30 countries around the world, according to the official.
The bloc came to help during a A great escalation of fighting in the eastern CongoWhere millions of people were already cultivated and where the MPOX virus outbreak Declared a state of global health emergency last year.
in The civilian Sudan tornAnd it is Wrestle with choleraThe official said that malaria and measles, freezing aid, means that 600,000 people will be at great risk of hunting and spreading these diseases.
Even with the exemption from life -saving services, the official said that their organization was told that no activities funded by the American International Development Agency until they received notification that the waiver applies to it.
___
IMRAY of Cape Town, South Africa, said Motsaka from Harari and Zimbabwe, and informed Panshiro from Dakar, Senegal. The Associated Press Maria Cheng’s book in London, Eline Nikir in Washington and Jacob Zimba, Lusaka, Zambia, contributed to this story.
___
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development in Africa from the Gates Foundation. AP is the only responsible for all content. Look for AP Standards To work with charitable works, a list of supporters and coverage areas in AP.org.
