19 August 2021

Today is World Humanitarian Day, and the aid sector is calling on the government to support local Afghan staff working for aid charities.

“While the troops may have left, aid workers remain,” says Council for International Development’s (CID) Humanitarian Manager, Aaron Davy.

“These are the locally engaged staff who work for or with the support of New Zealand aid charities. They make sure girls are educated, provide health services, or work with communities to protect the most vulnerable. They urgently need our support, with increased donations and grants.

“In some cases, aid staff and their families need to get out if their lives are in danger. This is particularly true for local women working for aid agencies.”

CID is calling on the New Zealand government to provide routes of safety out of Afghanistan, not just for staff who worked with the New Zealand Defence Force, police or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also staff who have worked for our aid charities.

The aid sector marks this week as New Zealand’s ‘Global Giving Week’, when our charities come together to ask our ‘team of five million’ to play our part as good global citizens.

“While we may be in lockdown, there are millions of people who are struggling not just with COVID, but with increased food insecurity, earthquakes in Haiti, or running for their lives as refugees and finding themselves stuck in camps for years.”

The ongoing pandemic continues to reverse decades of poverty reduction. The UN estimates that, due to the severe long-term impacts of the pandemic, an additional 207 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030, bringing the total number to more than one billion.

“We are calling on the already generous Kiwi public to keep supporting your charity of choice. Their focus on accountability, and the alleviation of suffering globally, means you can trust your donation is having a critical and effective impact overseas.”

Please go to the CID website to find a full list of appeals to support in Global Giving Week, including the following New Zealand based appeals:

• Childfund Haiti Appeal support for those impacted by the Haiti Earthquake
• Caritas Haiti and Afghanistan Appeal
• Amnesty Afghanistan petition calling for safe passage out of Afghanistan for those at risk
• CWS Haiti Appeal

Other appeals include:

• Get One. Give One joint campaign to give a vaccine to someone overseas
• Fiji and PNG COVID appeals, from Save the Children, ADRA, Rotary and CBM
• Syria appeals from Save the Children
• Tigray Crisis Appeal from World Vision where hunger is a growing problem
• India COVID appeals from Oxfam

All charities listed are CID members, and signatories to the CID Code of Conduct which means you can trust in the accountability processes of these aid organisations to get funds to where they are most needed.

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