¶ US Halts Nearly All Foreign Aid
This is Inside Geneva . I'm your host , imogen Foulkes , and this is a production from Swissinfo , the international public media company of Switzerland .
In today's program , the Trump administration has issued a halt to nearly all existing foreign aid . Creating safe zones for Syrian women in refugee camps , providing medical assistance to pregnant women in Burma this is the type of action the UN Population Fund has led . The US has been one of the UN agency's founders and main donors .
It's now ceasing all contributions .
Right now , a woman dies of a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes . Okay , so that's unacceptable . What is one of the grants that the US just cut is to support the training and salaries for midwives .
The United Nations is saying that there could be 2,000 new cases of HIV due to the USAID cuts . This as President Donald Trump puts millions of dollars of foreign aid on pause .
We actually had something that was successful . We were one of the only 17 sustainable development goals that was able to see the end in sight . We're so close to ending AIDS full stop and we could very well be turning back completely .
In Sudan , the freeze on US aid has forced up to 80% of emergency food kitchens , or about 1,100 facilities to close , I will always have the hope and I have to have hope .
I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society . I have a staff . I have 12 , hope . I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society . I have a staff . I have 12,000 volunteers behind me . So I always have to be really strong and give the hope to everybody to continue serving the Sudan .
Sure , the humanitarian system isn't perfect , you know , it might be inefficient sometimes , it might be a little bit colonialistic sometimes , but I mean it was delivering results . We were seeing actual progress and now , in a few months , decades of progress will be raised .
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva . And in today's programme we're going to return because it is such a huge subject for the United Nations here to the huge cuts in funding for humanitarian aid , and I'm joined here in the studio by Swiss Info correspondent , Dorianne Burkhalter . Good to have you with us , Dorianne .
Thank you for having me .
Now you've been covering this extensively and also a bit later in the programme we're going to hear from specific aid agencies about how their work has been impacted so far , and particularly the effect on women and girls in crisis zones .
Dorian , I think it's hard to underestimate the sense of shock that there has been in Geneva from the aid agencies about these cuts .
Yeah , no , you're right . I mean there is a real sense of worry about the impact those cuts will have , mostly on people underground . But we've also heard , I mean , that the cuts will also touch UN workers working here , other workers in other NGOs . But I think really , initially there was surprise by just the breadth of those cuts and how fast they came .
There was a 90 days period review . Now we're at the end of it and there's still a lot of Theoretically . Theoretically , there's still a lot of uncertainty . But I think it's important to also remind the listeners just about how much the US was contributing to humanitarian aid .
It was paying for 40% of global aid and about half of that came from USAID , which now we know , or think we know , will pretty much disappear , with more than 80% of its programs being closed . So I mean , in any case , we know the impact will be huge , but it's hard to have a clear picture of just what will happen next .
Yeah , that's right . Actually . I mean , I think we heard this 90-day period theoretically ended this week . This was the period in which aid programs were theoretically going to be assessed by the United States of whether they were worthwhile or not .
But aid agencies are still in the dark and I think , listeners , you might be interested to know this , but it's kind of sneak peek behind the scenes of what we do , briefing from the UN aid agencies and it is really now a litany of confusion , anxiety and misery .
So this Tuesday morning we heard of funding cuts for millions of people in Ethiopia , which it's dropped off the radar screens , but the conflict and suffering there has not disappeared . So people there who are severely malnourished the warning signs even possible impending famine are there now will not be getting food because there's no money .
And this morning we heard about what did we hear about ? Sudan ?
Sudan .
Ukraine .
Ukraine .
Ukraine . Funding cuts for displaced people in Ukraine . Funding cuts for food aid in Sudan , where 25 million
¶ Impact on Global Humanitarian Operations
people in Sudan are in need of humanitarian aid . That's half the population .
And Sudan is the cause of the world's largest displacement crisis . What is it ? 12 million people displaced .
I think it's closer to 13 now . Yeah .
Internally and externally .
Yeah , out into Chad , places like the neighboring countries . So every day , or at least twice a week , we hear from the aid agencies we're going to have to stop this , we're going to have to stop that .
But there's always a caveat at the end , we think , because there still seems to be a lot of confusion about what's actually happening who's Deputy Executive Director of Programs at UNAIDS . So what I asked her was so where do you stand now ? These 90 days are over and , as you see , she was a bit challenged to answer .
Our expectation was that after 90 days , which would effectively be April 19th , we would have had a signal or decision one way or the other , in terms of what the funding landscape from the US government might look like in the HIV response , what kind of parameters , considerations , et cetera .
It might look like the unfortunate reality is that the decisions have not yet been made . We understand that the 90-day review has been extended by 30 days and that decisions will be communicated on or around May 19th . So still a lot of uncertainty .
As we speak . One of the things that I'm hearing from a number of different aid agencies is the concern , the impact some of these cuts will have specifically on women and girls . Is that something that concerns you too ? Are you seeing that ?
The disruption of services and the devastation of services , both HIV prevention and treatment services , has truly been seismic in terms of what has happened at the country level . At the community level , women and girls are , particularly on the continent of Africa , are hit very hard .
It is young women and girls that often suffer the most when these kinds of major cuts happen . As you know , women and girls are more than three times more likely than their male counterparts in Africa to be living with HIV and every week , for example , 4,000 adolescent girls and young women become infected with HIV globally .
3,100 of those live in sub-Saharan Africa . So the impact of what has happened with the stop work orders and the freeze and the cutting of funding has definitely impacted women and girls , especially in sub-Saharan Africa .
It is deeply concerning what we are seeing , with pregnant women , for example , going into clinics , women that may have HIV that are not tested for HIV , then their unborn child if they are deemed positive , you know , and not put on treatment , then their unborn child being born positive with HIV .
We're seeing prevention services just shuttered completely , while we're seeing 1.3 million new infections all around the world . So we are very concerned about ensuring prevention services for women and girls , as well as treatment continuity for adolescent girls and young women , and this is an area of focus that we have to continue .
Well , you're in Washington at the moment . Have you got a sympathetic ear there ? Have you found people who perhaps do understand the consequences of neglecting HIV prevention ?
We were grateful that a waiver came from Secretary Rubio to protect comprehensive testing and treatment services HIV treatment services . Part of that memo included prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women .
In my mind that is a very clear direction for prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women Now just clarify on the issue of the waiver , because I've heard from different aid agencies that they have got emails saying , yes , you've got a waiver , but that the money to back that up that waiver has not actually been freed up again . Do you have clarity about ?
that what's been challenging , related to the implementation of the waiver , as you're describing , is that , while the waiver was issued and put in place and has listed out a number of these parameters , like comprehensive treatment , like prevention of mother-to-child transmission and prevention for pregnant and breastfeeding women , what was also happening in the background is
significant structural changes to other parts of the US government . For example , we've been seeing , as you've been seeing , all the changes that have been happening to the aid agency , usaid and other parts of the US government . So , while these changes are happening in the background , financial management systems , people that are within the US government .
So , while these changes are happening in the background , financial management systems , people that are within the US government that would normally be working on the procurement and the movement of money and the contracting work .
These are people that existed one day and didn't the next , or financial systems that were functional one day and not the next , and so that's part of what has prohibited the waiver from being implemented successfully across the board . The question now will also be what does the future look like beyond the waiver ?
How can we make sure that what is prioritized is indeed what needs to be prioritised for the HIV response ?
Kind of clear as mud really . She really doesn't know what money she's going to get and what not , and whether prevention of HIV in pregnant women is included in life saving . She seems to think that prevention for other people is not included to think that prevention for other people is not included .
I mean , it is a really worrying testimony and I think with this question of prevention , now we see that the US is trying to says there will be waivers for life-saving initiatives ,
¶ UNAIDS Response to Funding Uncertainty
but over the years and this sometimes is criticized the UN has been doing much more than just life-saving initiatives , and that's also other big NGOs , smaller NGOs , but it's also just because humanitarian needs have exploded over the last 20 years . Right , there were 5 billion in 2005 . There are now 50 billion Dollars , dollars , dollars , yeah .
So now saying you won't do prevention is , I mean , really complicated , because it's an effective way of also controlling those needs and the cost Exactly so . There's a real tension here between saying you want to prioritize and , at the same time , saving lives .
I'm wondering though , because you have been talking in depth and we should say that Dorian's going to have a whole series on Swiss Info , series of articles about the aid cuts and the reflection that's going on within aid agencies about the future within aid agencies . About the future , you know , there was a possibility .
It must have been lurking in their minds for at least two years that Trump might be elected again and that there could be consequences for international aid . Do you think they were badly prepared ?
I think they never saw it coming that he would go or that he would hit this hard the humanitarian sector . But the problem of the influence of the US funding and , I think , more broadly , Western countries funding it's a handful of countries that pay for about or more than 60% of the humanitarian system .
This issue was identified years ago and they've been calling for more countries to contribute to aid operations worldwide , but I think those calls have not really been listened to because there aren't really that many countries beyond Western countries that pay for humanitarian aid .
In recent years we've seen some of the Gulf countries , in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates .
But they I mean these are wealthy , oil-rich countries , they have money , but quite often it seems they spend money bilaterally . It doesn't go through the UN system and arguably it means that some of the real humanitarian priorities that the UN identifies in its neutral , impartial way don't necessarily get identified as clearly as they should .
And we should also say because you pointed out there that majority of aid funding still comes from the same old countries . It's Europe , europe and it's the United States . And although the United States is the biggest cutter , it's not the only one . Germany is cutting , the UK is cutting , not in the same public .
And I mean I have to say it does come across quite mean-spirited the language that's coming out of Washington about why they're cutting . I mean feeding USAID into the wood chipper , as Elon Musk said . It's cruel language . It doesn't really help the whole debate at all .
But linked to that , we wanted to talk about whether , in particular with the US approach , there is also ideology going on . We know that countries think of aid as soft power . We know that the United States you say this very clearly in one of your articles has for decades thought of its humanitarian aid as a way of furthering its ideological beliefs .
But that also now is impacting humanitarian aid . Tell us about the questionnaire the aid agencies got , because we haven't talked about it that much on Inside Geneva .
Yeah , so it was last month , I think about a month ago . We learned that a lot of NGOs in Geneva , but also some of the UN agencies , had been receiving this questionnaire from the US government , asking them about questions like are you receiving any money from countries like China , like Russia ? Do you implement diversity and inclusion programs ?
Do you support environmental causes ? What's your stand on gender identity ? Sort of a checklist of MAGA compliance . Make America Great Again , yeah .
I mean very much the MAGA idea of what's good and what's bad .
Bad yeah .
And I think all of the aid agencies have been put on the back foot by this , because I mean , frankly , if you look at the World Food Programme , they are seeing people hungry directly because of the consequences of climate change .
They are seeing UNICEF or the UN Population Fund , which we're going to come on to in a moment , clearly seeing the need for programs to specifically support women and girls in areas of conflict , because of the vulnerability of women and girls .
And this is , I think I mean we were talking earlier about uncertainty about what those cuts eventually will look like . I think this questionnaire gives us a good indication of the people that will be left out , and it will be women , it will be minorities , it will be the environment as well .
Yeah , and that could be quite devastating and in fact already is proving devastating . I want to play you a bit of an interview with Sarah Craven , who is the North American director of the UN Population Fund .
Now , of all the aid agencies which perhaps should have planned for a cut in funding is indeed the UNFPA , because they have for years had a , shall we say , complicated relationship with Republican administrations in Washington , because they offer health support and reproductive health support that can mean contraception to women in developing
¶ UNFPA's Work and Maternal Health Crisis
countries , and their funding has been cut by previous administrations the Bush administration , I think also the Reagan administration . So here's Sarah giving us a perhaps broader , out of the tabloid headlines example of what UNFPA actually does .
I'll give you one example . Last week , the UN issued a report . We like to issue reports in the UN , and this one was a really devastating one about maternal mortality . You know , we've made progress in preventing maternal mortality , but we're at a real risk of , you know , falling back on some of that progress .
Right now , a woman dies of a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes . Okay , so that's unacceptable . And you know , in this report it talked about where is one of the the most dangerous place for a woman to give birth right now is in Chad . You have a one in 24 chance of dying in childbirth .
What is one of the grants that the US just cut is to support the training and salaries for midwives midwives . So we're talking about small interventions that can make a difference in saving a woman from dying in childbirth having a trained birth attendant or a midwife . And then , with no reason , that funding was cut and was not seen as life-saving .
So that's kind of what we're dealing with right now . As I said , we had anticipated that there would be cut , potentially , you know no future funding coming . What we didn't really anticipate was that all of our existing contracts , which were over 300 million , would suddenly face a stop work order .
If you already had the funding , what was to stop you just ignoring the stop work order on the basis that stopping work would risk the lives of women and girls ?
Well , you know , we , like every other UN organization , international organization , have signed contracts with the US government . So when they give you a stop work order , that's under the contractual obligations . So we couldn't go rogue . You know we have three big goals that we're trying to achieve .
One is to ensure that anyone who would like to have access to voluntary , effective , safe methods of birth control have that access . Two is to ensure that no one dies giving life and that we end preventable maternal mortality . And three , that women and girls are protected from violence . I mean these are big things that impact .
Three , that women and girls are protected from violence . I mean these are big things that impact the women of lives and girls and I think everyone agrees on them . These are low-cost interventions .
I always say we're not looking for a cure , we're not looking for trillion-dollar investment , but a small intervention like one example is if your listeners had a visual is we have something that's called a safe delivery kit costs about $5 . And it's very simple .
It's a sheet of plastic , a bar of soap , plastic gloves , a string , a razor blade and info instructions , like picture instructions of how to deliver a baby safely . So if you're a woman who's pregnant in a place where there's no hospital , no midwife , no traditional birth attendant . This might be your best shot at having a sterile surface to deliver a baby .
It's a very small intervention that can make a huge difference and you know , we have interventions that go from that to larger ones , like hospitainers that could be delivered to a humanitarian setting where women could be receiving not only maternity care but also protection and treatment if they've been subjected to sexual violence .
So these are the few pinnings of support that women and girls who've lost everything can rely on .
That makes me very sad . To hear that , I mean , I've had two children and you know , even in a Swiss hospital , when you're having a baby , you do realize that the plastic sheet and the pair of scissors are the basics that you need , and to think that women can be without anything just makes me really , really sad .
And it's again a good example of a prevention measure that costs little money but has a huge impact and now is being cut , possibly because it's not targeting the right audience or being seen as serving US interests . But I mean it also shows that , beyond what is considered life-saving , all the other prevention initiatives that the UN does are having a real impact .
They're not just nice to have .
No life-saving . But I think it appears that the interpretation of life-saving well , as we heard from UN AIDS , the people they could discuss whether a program was life-saving or just kind of life-improving are not at their desks anymore . They've been fed into Elon Musk's woodchipper .
What is emerging for me , though , really here is , as we said , you said , minorities and women and girls , and we know that women and girls are particularly vulnerable in conflict Women , girls and children , you know they get pushed out of the way in chaotic food distribution operations .
They are very vulnerable to sexual violence , particularly if you've not got a well-run UN refugee camp where they have precisely those programs run by UNFPA or UNICEF , for example , to try and prevent that .
I'm going to come back to Sudan , because we're beginning to also ask ourselves , I think , who is left in crisis zones , and I had the great good fortune to meet up with the General Secretary of the Sudanese Red Crescent .
She is Aida El-Sayed Abdullah , and she was here in Geneva for a few days trying to raise attention to the crisis in Sudan , and there we have heard that sexual violence is rife and being used , as human rights groups say , as a weapon of war . Here's what she had to say .
The report about sexual violence is really breaking the heart about what the Sudanese people is really suffering . We have found a lot of cases . I have a doctor working with me . I never know that she's a doctor . She came as a volunteer and she's giving tea and coffee and by the end I said who is she ?
They tell me she's a doctor and I just asked her the question that why you are not in a hospital . What are you doing here shouting no , I am not a doctor , I am a volunteer . When we deep in her story , she has been raped 30 times and by the time they bring her to the hospital she is almost dying . So it took one year from
¶ Sudan Crisis and Local Humanitarian Efforts
us to talk to her . So this is only one case .
We have millions of cases like that in Sudan . You work sometimes with the UN Population Fund on programmes to support survivors of sexual violence , yet this is one aspect of the UN that's being really cut to the bone . Does that worry you that particularly programmes for women and girls seem to be losing out ?
They're often neglected in conflict anyway , but now they really seem to be losing out . They're often neglected in conflict anyway , but now they really seem to be losing out .
The cut of the budget really makes us shaking , because we get a good fund from UNIVBA and UNICEF for these cases and now , after the cut of the budget , if they pull out , we only get the support from the movement and the appeal of IFRC that we're working in that with them . That is only 30% funded .
In the beginning of the war , for a few months we can see Sudan is there in the media . You open the TV , open the social media , sudan is there . But after that completely forget it . Nobody talk about Sudan , nobody talk about the suffering of the people there . We launch appeals to support the Sudanese community . Only 30% has been covered .
The international community is not there for Sudan . The war has to stop , peace has to come , but the right of the Sudanese people to go back to their life , to go back to their houses , this has to be put on the table now .
It feels like we're a long way from that . I mean , I'm beginning to ask myself who is going to be left in these crisis zones .
I mean , I think the question of who will be there last is really interesting , because I think if you're running out of money and you're still in Sudan , I mean what are you going to do ?
You're going to try to have the biggest impact you can , but then you also maybe won't be looking at who isn't getting aid and you won't be able to report on that very much , and so we may also never know what happens in all those places where the last people who were still getting a little bit of money no longer has it .
They won't be telling the story of the people they're not able to help anymore if they just completely shut down their operation .
So we heard from the UN Population Fund that the UN did a report , which it's good to have , this data on maternal mortality . Which is it's good to have this data on maternal mortality ?
We may never know what maternal mortality rises to in Sudan or Chad or Yemen or Afghanistan , because the support for mothers and babies has gone and the people even assessing the problem are gone . It's interesting also that the Sudanese Red Crescent and we hear so often about the necessity of having local people on the ground and Aida is from Khartoum .
She's a displaced person herself . She now lives in Port Sudan , but she will not leave and she wants to support her country , and she is exactly the right person , a woman from Sudan , to approach Sudanese women who have been subjected to sexual violence .
But the Sudanese Red Crescent was getting support from the UN Population Fund to run its programs on sexual violence and support for survivors , and this is one of the interlinking things , isn't it ? That's also causing huge problems .
Yeah and this is also something I learned about while writing my stories is I was talking to MSF , and MSF is not funded by the US government .
It gets 97 percent of its global funding from the private sector and actually mostly individuals , people like you and me and yet they do rely , for example , on local health ministries for vaccines that were supported by the US aid .
Or via the World Health Organization or the World .
Health Organizations , or were using some of those programs to get vaccines at a better price . So if these aren't there anymore , they will have to pay for vaccines . That will increase their costs .
They were using the UN for logistics as well , For example , the UN Humanitarian Air Service , which is a service where you can rent a small plane or an helicopter to reach hard-to-reach areas or areas that are just too dangerous to reach by road . They won't be able to do that anymore if funding decreases there .
And also , I mean , what is the point for them on a refugee camp to provide some of the health services they provide If there isn't food , if there isn't water , if there isn't shelter ? They'll have to do that as well . So it feels like a lot of NGOs have to increase their costs and ask for more money because their partners aren't here anymore .
So there are a lot of interlinkings we don't even think about .
We don't , and I think it's one of those things .
I think it must be a source of real frustration , perhaps to the UN and particularly OCHA , coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , because they worked very hard I mean , I've watched this over 20 years to develop a very coherent system , a cluster system , where one aid agency , the most fitted for the job , would be the lead agency in a crisis , the lead agency in a
crisis , and then they would work outwards with other UN agencies and implementing partners , which is exactly what MSF Doctors Without Borders is .
They have the trained doctors , they have their private money to pay them , but they rely on this UN infrastructure in the background , and if that's gone , it will be very hard for MSF in many parts of the world to work .
¶ Future of Global Aid and Solidarity
Do you think , then , we're looking at an absolute , radical shake up of how humanitarian aid is done ? I mean , for me , I just feel like we're looking almost a bit at a smouldering ruin . We don't see anything rising from the ashes yet .
Yeah , no , I think we are . I mean and I've heard this as well from a few people in the sector that this really is an existential crisis for humanitarian aid and also a lot of I guess analogy I heard a lot is that it's easier to demolish a house than it is to build one .
And I think this is exactly what's happening is NGOs are closing , people are leaving this field and also just public opinion will get used to a lower level of funding . And if we don't hear about crisis anymore because no one's there to talk about them , really who is going to step in ?
We've seen that there seem to be limited interest from other countries to pay for humanitarian aid , at least through the UN system . We can also talk about China , the world's second economy .
A bit stingy .
Yes , Last year paid for $8 million . China paid $8 million , last year $8 million . The US was paying $10 billion .
Yeah , more than 1,000 times as much . And there you can see the American taxpayer getting a bit frustrated , although I think we did say once , point out , and we should perhaps point out again , that the percentage of its GDP that the US spends on foreign aid is much smaller than many European countries . We traditionally spend more .
It's just that our economy is more proportionally just , our economies aren't as big , so in cold hard cash it's less . Well , I think you know we should revisit this in a year's time , but I fear , I really fear , even from a journalistic point of view , because my colleagues and myself I've done it also .
When we go to crisis zones , we often get there with the support of the humanitarians on the ground , and if they're not there anymore , it's not only that , just money will not be going to crisis , they will go unreported and we will retreat further and further into our little privileged enclaves and forget about the rest of the world , which seems very sad .
Not a very positive note to end on , but I agree .
Well , we won't end quite yet . Just before we go , I asked each of the three women that I interviewed just to give me a little summing up for the future where they think things are going . And I want to start with Aida from Sudan , from the Sudanese Red Crescent , because she will stay there . She is a displaced person . She can't give up on her country .
She doesn't have that choice here in Europe or America . We may have the choice to give up on Sudan , but she doesn't have that choice .
I'm there in Port Sudan because I love my country , I love my national society and I think I have to do something for my country and for my national society . I will always have the hope and I have to have hope for my country and for my national society . I will always have the hope and I have to have hope .
I am a leader of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society . I have a staff . I have 12,000 volunteers behind me , so I always have to be really strong and give the hope to everybody to continue serving the Sudan . So we hope within one or two years everything will be finished and we can go back home . Because even Sudanese Red Crescent , we're all IDPs .
We are based in Khartoum , we have been kicked and now we are based in Port Sudan or other areas and we try to do our best to serve the Sudanese community . But we never lose hope . Sudan will go back community .
But we never lose hope . Sudan will go back . It's shaming somehow to think that she's there with 12,000 Sudanese volunteers , not paid volunteers , and yet here in Europe or in America we quibble about a dollar a month from the population to support people in crisis like that . From the population to support people in crisis like that .
I will let you hear now Sarah from UNFPA .
Our commitment is not going to change .
Our commitment to our mandate is unwavering , that we are going to continue to do what we can to support vulnerable women and girls , forgotten women and girls everywhere we work , whether it's in a development or humanitarian context , and I fundamentally believe that you know others will continue to support the UN system , continue to do their own support .
But it's troubling because it's not just the US . You see other countries that are cutting their ODA , so it's a very bleak funding picture and I think it's going to require others to step up , others to partner , and it's a troubling time .
It's a really troubling time but I , you know , I guess I'm still an optimist in that you know people are fundamentally good and want to help people around the world .
I hope . Do you think her optimism is justified ?
I don't really see it . I mean , as she said , I think it is again important to stress that it's not just the US that's retreating from the humanitarian sector . It is also other Western countries , including Switzerland , countries that are proud of their humanitarian tradition .
And I mean , I really am impressed by the courage , determination and optimism of these women , because I feel like us journalists are a lot more pessimistic in general .
I mean it's our job to try and analyze the situation and I mean I agree with you . I don't share the situation and I mean I agree with you . I don't share the optimism . I think the US money is gone , certainly for the next four years , and the damage that could be done in those four years is immense and I don't think has quite sunk in .
But here let's listen just at the last two Angele of UNAIDS , because she gives for me the clearest and most impassioned , in a way , explanation of why it's really short-sighted for all of us to disinvest in humanitarian funding .
Does this make me sad ? The lack of global solidarity right now ?
¶ Final Thoughts on Aid Cuts' Consequences
Funding Does this make me sad ? The lack of global solidarity right now ? Absolutely , I am most sad , not for myself . I am most sad for all the millions of people living with HIV and affected by HIV whose lives have been upended in one way , shape or form in the past few months . They have lost access to life-saving medication .
They have showed up at clinics for support with no one there to support them . You know , women have gone into clinics to provide care for their unborn child with no medication or no testing or no services . What makes me sad also , imogen , is that we actually had something that was successful . We were making progress .
We were one of the only 17 sustainable development goals that was able to see the end in sight . So what makes me sad is that we're this close , we're so close to ending AIDS full stop , and we could very well be turning back completely . All these years of work , dedication and progress are fragile and could be unraveled .
So while I am sad about the people that have been impacted and I'm sad about the prospect that we might be missing of achieving the end of AIDS , I have to continue to be hopeful that the world will come together , mobilize together in solidarity to make sure that we fulfill our promise and we end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 .
It is possible , it is doable , and what it takes right now is leaning in instead of leaning away I mean , you're too young to remember the 1980s , but I'm not and to see this illness , which people were terrified of , and then find treatments for it , find ways to prevent it and then step away .
I mean , it was a shining beacon , the US funding for AIDS treatment and prevention .
And I mean I think , sure , the humanitarian system isn't perfect , you know , it might be inefficient sometimes , it might be a little bit colonialistic sometimes , but I mean it was delivering results . And I think we're back to this idea of it's easier to destroy a house than it is to build one .
We were seeing actual progress and now in a few months , in a few years , decades of progress will be raised and that's extremely worrying .
And I think this applies to AIDS , it applies to other diseases as well , it applies in Malaria , tb , maternal mortality the list is long and depressing and we don't want to leave you on a really depressing note , but we are going to have to leave you . But , dorian , when are your , is your series of articles coming out ?
Because a lot of the questions that listeners might have based on this conversation are addressed there , too , in more detail so they're going to come out over the next two weeks , starting in French .
So for our French speaking listeners , they'll read them first .
Sneak preview francophones lucky you .
And the English versions will follow , hopefully shortly , but in the coming weeks as well .
Okay , so you can find all of them on Swissinfoch . That is it from us for this edition of Inside Geneva . Join us , though , in two weeks , where we're going to have that long-promised discussion on toxic masculinity and whether UN Human Rights is correct .
The UN Human Rights Commissioner has said he sees it as very concerning the rise in what he called toxic masculinity . We're going to have an all-woman show for that one . Thank you , Dorianne , for that one . Thank you , Dorianne , for joining us . Thank you all for listening , and join us next time .
Thank you A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva , a Swiss Info production . You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts . Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families , or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice . I'm Imogen Folksowkes .
Thanks again for listening .