Layers of false pretenses

Late last week, it was reported that the World Food Program was going to cut monthly food aid to Rohingya refugees from $12.50 per month (approximately 3,500 rupees) to $6 per month (approximately 1,600 rupees). It is hard to imagine the impact, the pain and the suffering that this aid cut would cause on people who have already been suffering for so long. Unsurprisingly, people who work in this sector have attributed the new policy to sharp and sudden cuts from USAID and other donors.

The impact of USAID cuts has been, and is being, discussed in numerous articles, op-eds and analyses. There is much to discuss there, alongside the issue of both the history of aid and its impact on poor countries. There are questions about the real goal of aid, the dependency question and real change on the ground. There are also considerations about disease surveillance, healthcare access and hunger reduction happening within the last two decades and cannot simply be dismissed. But there is also another question – why do we depend so much on a single donor, the absence of which has such far reaching consequences? Why should it be a single country, or a very small group of countries, that provide most of the aid? Why should taking care of others not be a collective responsibility?

Recent data published in The New Humanitarian magazine showed that US support accounted for nearly 43% of all humanitarian aid in 2023. If you add Germany and the EU, the total contributed by these three countries added to nearly two-thirds of all humanitarian aid. This is a staggering number. Three donors making up two out of three dollars spent globally on aid. For the Rohingya, 51% of all aid came from the US. There is, of course, plenty to be said about the broader issues of history, colonialism, exploitation, etc. But for the sake of argument, if those who we think ought to support the weak and the vulnerable do not do so for whatever reason, do we abandon the weak and the vulnerable? What responsibility do the rest of us have towards those who may have fallen on hard times?

Let us look at another example. It was recently reported that more than 80 female students who fled the Taliban government to pursue higher education in Oman will be sent back in about two weeks because their scholarship was funded by USAID and with the cuts, there is no way for them to continue their education. One has to ask here – is that really so? Does Oman really need to send them back in two weeks because the scholarship from USAID got discontinued? Oman's per capita GDP is $20,000 approximately. It is a high income country by various international classifications. Is Oman really unable to support 80 students finish their programme, knowing full well the current landscape of education for girls and women in Afghanistan? What about the neighbours of Oman, countries that are even richer than Oman? Is our humanity only operational when it bankrolled by someone else?

The dismantling of USAID has profound implications, and there are important considerations that merit attention. But the collapse of aid from the US also says a lot about commitment to humanitarian values of so many of us all over the world. If someone is drowning, and the individual who may have contributed to the fall in the water is not interested in helping, should we all turn around and say tough luck, and then go back to our own world where we preach about great values of solidarity, human rights, dignity, etc? Or should we do something else?