Voluntary work helping poorest countries with pandemic to ‘stop immediately’ under savage government cuts

Voluntary work helping the world’s poorest countries cope with the pandemic will stop “immediately” next month under savage government cuts, an inquiry has been told.

The charity Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is preparing to wind down operations in 14 countries – and make 200 people redundant – unless ministers agree to rethink.

Its chief executive, Philip Goodwin, said there was disbelief that the UK was abandoning its long-standing reputation as “a global power” in voluntary work responding to disasters.

A Lords committee was told that funding of £47m two years ago was set to shrivel to as little as £11m from April – with the VSO still in the dark, with just days to go.

Mr Goodwin pointed to everything from supporting quarantine centres in Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia to first-aid training amid the coup in Myanmar.

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“That would to stop, all of that work,” unless the grant was restored, he told peers, adding: “We would have to stop it immediately.”

The cuts are the starkest implication yet of the government’s decision to axe £4bn-a-year from the overseas aid budget – breaking a pledge to give MPs a vote first and amid warnings it is “unlawful”.

The cuts are also poised to remove at least half of funding to the conflict zones of Yemen, Syria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Nigeria and the Lebanon.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has refused to say exactly where they will fall – with the new budget to start in April – but will make an announcement “around Easter”.

Mr Goodwin called the situation “staggering”, asking: “Why would any government want to walk away when it wants to be a soft power superpower?”

VSO is credited with giving generations of young Britons their first experience of foreign travel, as they helped poorer communities with disaster relief and development.

By the 1960s, thousands of volunteers were working around the world on grassroots projects before going to university in a forerunner of today’s gap year.

Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow, Leo Varadkar, the former Irish prime minister, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, are among those who joined the scheme.

“In Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, we were using our youth networks to support the quarantine centres in making sure that social distances are maintained and taking body temperature,” Mr Goodwin told the Lords international relations committee.

“In Myanmar, we were providing the psychosocial first-aid training of the people who are particularly worried and concerned or affected by Covid-19.”

He added: “In disaster preparedness, we’ve been supporting the establishment of emergency operation centres for disease response in nine countries.”