Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Headlines, Human Rights, Population

PHILIPPINES: Children’s Charities Feel Economic Crunch

Kara Santos

MANILA, Mar 3 2010 (IPS) - Children’s charities and non-government organisations (NGOs) in the Philippines face tough times ahead as major overseas funders cut back on financial support due to the global financial crisis, against a backdrop of donor fatigue.

Donor funds may be falling, but children's needs are rising. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

Donor funds may be falling, but children's needs are rising. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

NGOs, including faith-based groups, have had to grapple with fewer aid funds in recent years for programmes for children – ranging from those working with blind children, sexual exploitation or anti-poverty efforts — in this South-east Asian country.

At least 30 percent of the Philippines’ 90 million population lives in poverty. Children are among the most vulnerable sectors because those aged under 15 years of age account for some 40 percent of the total population.

“One of our major funding organisations, based in Germany, has had to cut back funding 30 percent from previous years due to their own drop in donations,” shares Randy Weisser, director of Resources for the Blind (RBI).

RBI, a Christian organisation working with blind people in the Philippines for over two decades, says cutbacks threaten to undercut its teacher training programmes. These are a key part of its programme for the sponsorship of the education of some 40,000 blind Filipino children.

A hundred children lose their sight every week in the country, mostly due to preventable causes like premature birth, poor nutrition and measles, according to RBI.


Dolores Alforte, executive director of the Philippine counterpart of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT International), says support for its children and youth empowerment programme has been cut indefinitely by major funding partners from Europe.

“We have had to streamline operations, and it means fewer children victims and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation of children will directly benefit in terms of shelter, educational assistance, legal, medical and psychological support,” says Alforte.

ECPAT estimates that about 60,000 to 100,000 children are trafficked annually through both cross-border and internal trafficking in the Philippines, mostly girls from impoverished areas aged 14 to 17 years old.

Oxfam in the Philippines, engaged in humanitarian work particularly in Mindanao, one of the poorest areas in the country’s south , has had to make the difficult decision of cutting staff jobs instead of reducing programme work.

“We have cut back on support rather than on the programmes. This means we are working with a leaner staff to deliver on programme goals,” says Snehal Soneji, interim country director for Oxfam in the Philippines.

Funding comes primarily from private donations received by Oxfam affiliates in Britain, Hong Kong and the Netherlands as well as grants from international funding institutions, Soneji adds.

Prior to the 2008 economic crisis, NGOs in the Philippines were already experiencing financing problems from donor fatigue and a significant decline in grants from foreign donors, analysts point out.

“The international donor community no longer considers an emerging market like the Philippines a priority country. But the crisis made the situation worse. The few remaining NGO donors in the Philippines also cut their budgets (by up to 30 percent or more) arising from the effects of the crisis,” says Filomeno Sta Ana III, coordinator of the Manila-based advocacy group Action for Economic Reforms (AER).

A study by the NGO Committee for Social Development shows that not only do civil society organisations have to deal with a drop-off in donations, but those that work directly with the poor have to grapple with a greater demand for basic social services due to unemployment and higher food and fuel prices.

A total of 102 million additional people had to live on less than 1.25 U.S. dollars per day in developing countries in 2009 compared to what would have occurred in the absence of the global economic crisis, according to the ‘United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects’ report.

More than 72.5 million of those 102 million people were added to the ranks of the extremely poor in 2009, according to the study.

Hard times are also forcing groups like World Vision Philippines, a Christian relief organisation working with children, to explore other ways of staying afloat.

World Vision’s funding in the country, which comes mainly from individual donations, has remained stable despite a decrease in the number of new child sponsorships, says Boris Joaquin, director of donor engagement and fundraising at World Vision.

“New donors for child sponsorship were down 10 to 15 percent last year. If on the average we get 8,000 donors a year, we were down to about 6,000 in 2009 as more people were hesitant to become regular donors,” shares Joaquin.

“However, we still managed to grow by 39 percent in terms of total donations in cash, especially with renewed awareness among the public because of the disasters last year,” he adds, referring to disasters like typhoon Ketsana.

Joaquin added that World Vision is tapping funds from local and foreign governments, grant-giving bodies and embassies.

RBI has compensated for its lack of overseas donors by receiving funds from the local government. By accessing resources from the Philippine government, RBI’s funding for 2009 remained the same as that in 2008 and it did not have to reduce the number of teachers to be trained this year, Weisser points out.

Still, the financial picture for NGOs could remain bleak for some time.

“The global recovery has begun, but private lending remains dismal. Investments in the real sector that will create jobs have not really taken off. Unemployment remains high in both developed and developing countries,” says Sta Ana. “The recovery is slow so it will take time for the donors to recover.”

World Vision sees the current difficulty in tapping resources as an opportunity for NGOs to become more innovative and find other ways to help communities — through educational, health, microfinance and livelihood programmes instead of just direct donations.

“Donors don’t like giving one-time donations. They want to see that what they’re giving is put to good use and that there’s long-term growth among communities,” points out Joaquin.

(*This feature was produced by IPS Asia-Pacific under a series on the impact of the global economic crisis on children and young people, in partnership with UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific.)

 
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