Almost 400 staff working with Concern Worldwide have lost their jobs in a move the humanitarian organisation linked to “aid funding cuts”.
The number of job losses is expected to rise due to the severity of the funding cuts the charity has experienced, a spokesman said.
He added that positions were also at risk in the organisation’s head office in Dublin, but the numbers were still to be determined due to the “fluidity of the situation”.
Concern was formally founded in March 1968 at the Dublin home of Kay and John O’Loughlin-Kennedy. In 1967, Fr Raymond Kennedy, John’s brother, returned from Nigeria to Ireland with news about the ongoing crisis in Biafra.
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To raise awareness and funds, the trio held a conference in a Dublin hotel. The donations raised allowed them to send the first of what Concern called “mercy flights”. A short time later, Africa Concern was officially founded.
Concern Worldwide said it was being “forced” to make cuts that would hit staff across 13 of the 26 countries in which it operates. They have impacted staff in places such as Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria/Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Burkina Faso.
Many of these countries are experiencing protracted conflicts, forcing a large proportion of their citizens to rely on humanitarian aid for their basic needs. The charity says it helps 25 million vulnerable people each year in some of the world’s hardest to reach and fragile places.
The Trump administration announced last month it was cancelling nearly 10,000 foreign aid grants and contracts worth almost $60 billion, ending about 90 per cent of the US Agency for International Development (USAid) global work.
Other aid donors like Britain have also announced cuts as countries face growing pressure to boost defence spending.
The United Nations this week released $110 million from an emergency fund to help neglected crises around the world, including Sudan, in response to the cuts. It said that funding levels, which were dwindling long before US president’s move, are projected to drop to a record low this year.
The Concern spokesman said these “aid cuts will have a direct impact on the ability of organisations such as Concern to continue to reach those who desperately need our support”.
Dominic Crowley, Concern chief executive, said the charity had to let go of staff working in what he described as “incredibly difficult and insecure environments, who have made monumental sacrifices to support and serve their communities”.
He said these employees “now find themselves unemployed due to aid cuts”. Mr Crowley said “the greatest impact will be on the communities” they work with, which included “some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet”.
He said Concern’s first priority continues to be sustaining its country programmes, but “this cannot be done without adequate funding”.
Mr Crowley added: “We have sought to keep staff informed throughout the process, and to maintain the right level of staffing to maintain effective programming. This is obviously difficult in a context of budget cuts. We are seeking to minimise our global teams’ stress and anxiety in this context of deep uncertainty.”
