🔗 Share this article

These individuals describe themselves as the "lifeboat crew". Following their sudden termination when foreign assistance faced cuts in the past months, a collective of devoted staff opted to create their own emergency initiative.

Choosing not to "remain in despair", a former economist, along with like-minded former agency staff, initiated actions to rescue some of the vital initiatives that were at risk after the cuts.

Currently, almost 80 initiatives have been rescued by a facilitation effort managed by Rosenbaum and additional ex- agency employees, which has obtained them over $110m in new funding. The collective behind the resource optimization project program projects it will benefit millions of people, covering many young kids.

After the termination of operations, funds were halted, a large workforce was let go, and international programmes either came to a shuddering halt or were struggling toward what the economist terms "drop-dead dates".

The former staffer and several team members were contacted by a philanthropic organization that "aimed to determine how they could maximize the impact of their finite budgets".

They built a list from the cancelled projects, pinpointing those "offering the most critical assistance per dollar" and where a alternative supporter could feasibly get involved and keep things going.

They quickly understood the need was broader than that original organization and began to contact additional possible supporters.

"We called ourselves the emergency squad at the start," states the economist. "The ship has been collapsing, and there aren't enough emergency options for each programme to get on, and so we're attempting to truly protect as many infants as we can, place as many onto these lifeboats as possible, via the initiatives that are delivering aid."

The initiative, now working as part of a international policy center, has secured funding for seventy-nine initiatives on its selection in more than 30 nations. A few have had original funding restored. Several others were could not be preserved in time.

Financial support has originated from a mix of charitable organizations and affluent donors. The majority wish to remain unidentified.

"The supporters stem from very different reasons and perspectives, but the shared sentiment that we've heard from them is, 'I feel shocked by what's unfolding. I really want to figure out a way to help,'" explains Rosenbaum.

"I think that there was an 'lightbulb moment' for everyone involved as we started working on this, that this created an opportunity to shift from the inactivity and despair, wallowing in the gloom of everything that was happening around us, to having a meaningful task to really sink our teeth into."

One project that has obtained support through Pro is work by the Alliance for International Medical Action to deliver care encompassing nutritional rehabilitation, prenatal and postnatal support and essential immunizations for kids in the West African nation.

It is crucial to keep such programmes going, says Rosenbaum, not only because reinitiating work if they ended would be extremely costly but also because of how much confidence would be forfeited in the zones of instability if the group left.

"They shared […] 'we're very worried that if we withdraw, we may lose our place.'"

Initiatives with extended objectives, such as strengthening health systems, or in other fields such as education, have remained outside the initiative's scope. It also is not trying to save the projects indefinitely but to "buy time for the groups and, truthfully, the broader ecosystem, to figure out a sustainable answer".

After securing support for each programme on its original roster, the initiative says it will now concentrate on assisting further populations with "tested, efficient solutions".