The UN children's agency (UNICEF) is currently assessing the impact of the cessation of most US humanitarian aid, and millions of children, particularly in Haiti, have already been affected by the pause announced upon Donald Trump's return to power.
"We have received notices of termination for grants to UNICEF, which concern both humanitarian and development programs," said James Elder, a spokesperson for the organization, during a press briefing in Geneva.
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it would be making massive cuts to US foreign aid, including the elimination of 92% of funding for overseas programs by the US development agency, USAID, boasting of "saving taxpayers nearly $60 billion."
The United States was until then, by far, the largest donor of humanitarian and development aid.
"We continue to assess the impact these termination notices have on our programs, but we already know that the initial pause" affected "millions of children in about half the countries where we currently work," said Elder, who promised to publish the results of the impact study.
"Without urgent action, without funding, more children will suffer from malnutrition. Fewer will have access to education, and preventable diseases will claim more lives," the spokesperson warned.
"It is therefore very clear that any cuts in funding during these extremely difficult times put children's lives at risk at a time when they need support more than ever," he added.
UNICEF's head of Haiti, Geetanjali Narayan, who participated in the press briefing, stressed how vital US aid was for the poorest country in the Caribbean.
"The impact in Haiti, in a country so affected by conflict, violence, and poverty, is extreme and immediate. It's happening right now," Narayan said.
"It's not just UNICEF in Haiti that's affected, it's all our partners, the civil society organizations that have benefited from the support of the United States," she added.
In the north of the country, the manager explains, at a health center, monitoring malnutrition by weighing babies and their mothers is to be eliminated. The funding was American.
However, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Sudan has better news.
"Two weeks ago, the suspension of in-kind food aid to the WFP, which is purchased from American farmers (...) was lifted. This allowed us to resume our regular operations under all existing subsidies," Leni Kinzli said via video conference.
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