Downturn to Cost Billions in Aid to World's Poor
POUND'S WEAKNESS
British charities working overseas say the most harmful effect of the crisis so far has been the weakness of the pound. The CAFOD agency estimates the dollar value of British government aid may fall by as much as $41 billion between 2008 and 2014.
Groups funded by CAFOD in developing countries have already seen the dollar value of their sterling grants drop 25 to 30 percent compared with the middle of last year. "We're basically passing on the pain to our partners with profound apologies," said policy adviser George Gelber.
In Kenya, Charles Mwangi Waituru, country coordinator for the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, says the financial crisis will slow progress towards U.N. benchmark targets for reducing extreme poverty, which have a deadline of 2015.
"We are going to see drawbacks in key campaigns against poverty, disease and the new burden of climate change," he said. "In the long run the Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved in the stipulated time frame."
In the country's Rift Valley, 24-year-old Michael Ole Sayo runs a small agency that runs projects for Maasai nomads.
They have funding requirements of a few thousand dollars each, a tiny drop in the multi-billion-dollar aid industry. They are Ole Sayo's life's work.
"Most of the programmes are donor-funded. So if the donors don't get money we, who are the last kind of grassroots people, are not getting funding either," he said.
One of a new generation of educated young Maasai equally at home in their parents' remote huts and the internet cafes of Nairobi, Ole Sayo has given up several job opportunities in the city to stay and work with the community.
His projects include building rainwater collection tanks at a school, helping Maasai bead workers market their crafts, increasing awareness of female circumcision and improving inoculation and water supplies for cattle.
