The early March 2019 US order to cut on the funding supporting the different partners concentrating on different USAID indicators has caused a cold in the stomach for the employees and rendered the employers helpless. In as much as implementing partners would love to retain the able workforce of professionals, hired competitively; the budgets can no longer hold it. But if only it were their wish……..
The mental torture that the employers are currently undergoing is unimaginable. Sleepless nights are common as they ponder on the many hardworking staff who were once very responsible going back to square one is traumatizing. I can never imagine being in any of the Chief of Party’s shoes now or in the coming few months. They are undergoing much torture deciding on how to cut the number of employees “downsizing” to fit the lean but demanding budgets. This is what I mean……….The axe was merciless!
Many people including the staff, their friends and relatives do not understand what happened. Some are speculating and even ignorantly making insensitive comments. Let’s decamp shortly and see what the “order” aimed at in reality.
“For two years we have seen the administration call for an increase in burden sharing from other donors, but we have yet to see a coherent strategy of how a lower budget request results in increased burden sharing.”
– Megan Doherty, senior director of policy and advocacy, Mercy Corps
Megan was as worried as most of the Africans are right now. Let’s wait and see how it unfolds. But…..
The budget cut axe which aimed at low budget pieces did not mind how many “mouths” were to be affected. It leaves even a bigger question, is it baking another bigger problem? We shall re-visit….
Taking an example of Kenya, USAID has been here for more than 50years , strengthening institutions; preserving natural resources; and improving the lives of Kenyans through better healthcare, education and economic opportunities https://www.usaid.gov/kenya .
We happened to fall under the “Improvement of lives through better healthcare “and that’s the focus of this blog. USAID support began generally in 1972 but 1995 marked its support for Kenyan government to fight against HIV Pandemic. This has been the largest share of the US support to Kenya since then.
USAID Launched PEPFAR support in 2003 and partners were invited to submit proposals on how to implement the support strategy. With APHIA as the genesis of partner implementation, many other organizations and consortium came in and integrated HIV with other Chronic diseases https://www.usaid.gov/kenya/global-health.
While the budget cut conversations were commencing, the estimates of the Kenyans living with HIV by April 2019; both adults and children was 2.6M with 1.5M being adults while 1.1 were children https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1860/controlling-hivaids-epidemic. However, with the US support for over 16years, it was expected that the government had been mentored well enough to take over HIV management.
There are many implementing partners in Kenya supporting HIV including local Community based organizations thematically addressing components within HIV Care. The leading implementing coverage is for over 150 thousand people of the HIV population in Kenya which equally requires a big workforce!
The US budget cuts affected the partners differently whereby some received 90% cut offs while others received at least 35% with additional coverage scope. This immediately called for partners to lay off staff accordingly to be able to afford their implementation responsibilities. Some partners have already implemented as per the ordered while others are still in shock thinking, “If only it were our wish…”.
It has been hard, it has been daunting, it has been so harsh but it sure must happen or else otherwise. With the budget cut ratios, strategies to ensure that painfully they lay off will be applied and most contracts will be ended by the end of October 2019.
It is indeed painful but i believe the most haunting imagination of all implementing partners is, if only it were our wish…….. buts it’s never the end!
Quote of the day…….
Wastephen Jacqueline's 