Bangkok, Thailand – At the end of January, the Khmer HIV / AIDS NGO Alliance of Cambodia was informed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that any financing of its tuberculosis program was suspended for 90 days.
Khana, as the NGO is better known, detects around 10,000 cases of tuberculosis (TB) each year, providing preventive treatment to some 10,000 close contacts and medical care for some 300 rural patients, according to the executive director, Choub Sok Chamreun.
With the financing of drying, many rural Cambodians will soon lose Care, said Chamreun.
“During the suspension period, these people will have an interruption of service because we were invited to stop the work,” Chamreun told Al Jazeera de Phnom Penh.
“We expect these people will not have services, and they could lose follow -up for their treatment for tuberculosis.”
“Normally … they receive support for treatment, mental health support and regular follow -ups because [they] Live in rural communities, so they depend a lot on the support of our community health workers, “he added.
Khana is only one of the many charitable organizations and non-profit organizations across Southeast Asia who are afraid of their work while US President Donald Trump is moving to effectively abolish USAID under driving Radical cost reduction led by technological billionaire Elon Musk.
As the largest world humanitarian aid supplier in the world, USAID allocated $ 860 million in the region last year. The agency operates in six of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The level of economic development varies considerably throughout the region, which houses nearly 700 million people.
While Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of around $ 85,000, nations such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are in or around the quartile lower savings and count strongly on foreign aid.
USAID projects support health care, economic development, humanitarian assistance, education and support for “democracy, human rights and governance”, according to an archived page of the website now disappeared from the agency.
Many of these projects are administered through small NGOs working with local communities, such as Khana.
Much, if not all, of this aid is now on the cup block as a Trump and Musk, who qualified the USAID as “criminal organization”, works to dismantle the agency at the speed of lightning.
Friday, all direct or permanent rental employees of USAID must be placed on administrative leave and have 30 days to return to the United States if they are stationed abroad.
Several media reported that Trump planned to keep less than 300 of the agency’s 10,000 workers to manage a skeleton version of the agency, which is currently managed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an actor.
The criticisms criticized the agency’s invisible via executive action as unconstitutional, because the status of USAID as an independent organ was dedicated to law by the American Congress.
A staff member of an NGO in Thailand who works with Myanmar refugees said that the organization had already closed most of its health centers.
The staff member, who asked not to be appointed, said that the non -profit organization had consolidated his work with only two centers, releasing patients in a stable state and using his non -American limited funds to transfer Critical patients in Thai hospitals.
While the organization will continue to treat tuberculosis, HIV and malaria and a small number of patients internally, many of its operations will have to be taken up by the Thai government, said the staff member.
The refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar depend on the financing of the American government, and some like the Mae Lae refugee camp told Al Jazeera that he had only weeks of food.
Emilie Palamy Prachit, director of the Manushya Foundation, based in Bangkok, who describes her mission as human rights and advanced social justice, painted a dark image of the situation in Thailand.
“We have 35 activists and their families faced with transnational repression based on our rapid intervention fund since January,” Prachit told Al Jazeera.
“We have until the end of the month, and if we do not receive these funds, we will not be able to keep them in these safe houses … We put them in danger.”
“This is the end of development aid as we know it,” said Prachit.
Prachit’s pessimism was shared by an USAID employee who previously worked in Southeast Asia.
“All implementation partners [contractors and NGOs] are without any idea because there is no information. Everything that has been received is a work voucher, and there was no follow -up. Small entrepreneurs or NGOs are below, “said the USAID employee in Al Jazeera, asking not to be appointed due to fears of professional repercussions.
“The hypothesis at the moment is this 90 days [suspension] is not real. They bleed dry programs because, according to USAID regulations, for an NGO, you are not authorized to have more than a 30 -day financing reserve, “said the employee, explaining a stipulation that organizations must follow to receive support from USAID.
Some members of the NGO community, and even some USAID supporters, have recognized that the agency needs a reform to improve its operations and its efficiency, but say that the closure of the agency is not the answer.
“Some of the things Musk and Rubio have said are correct. They have [USAID] I have so much money … But local organizations have crumbs, “an employee of an NGO based in Thailand told Al Jazeera, who asked not to be named, in Al Jazeera.
“Many do not go to the front line. They [USAID] are powerful instruments for development but need a reform. But the way they stop is clumsy and hurtful because those who need [funding] The most is the small NGOs. »»
“The impacts will be felt for a while, and some will be irreparable,” added the employee.
Phin Savey, the Secretary General of the Cambodian Association for Human Rights and Development, the oldest human rights organization in Cambodia, said many of its programs should be suspended until ‘He can find other sources of funding.
“Without Usaid, we want to continue working, but for most activities, we need the budget,” Savey told Al Jazeera.
“The activities that we can do without money are simply to monitor the situation of human rights violations, the monitoring of land or political rights [violations]. “”
