Representatives of some organizations in Cabo Delgado say that the abrupt suspension of financial support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is already negatively affecting humanitarian assistance in the province.

For example, the Association of Young Promoters of Participatory Citizenship was forced to cancel the "Circle of Dialogues" program, which depended entirely on American support.

"...we were forced to stop our activities because we couldn't do them without funding. At the moment, we only carry out actions that don't require large resources," said Sumaiya Ibraimo, the association's humanitarian assistant.

The Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations of Cabo Delgado (FOCADE) warns that in addition to the beneficiaries of the support, dozens of jobs have had to be closed.

However, the NGOs understand that the suspension of US support is not the end of everything. They advocate scrambling to find new funders, although it is not easy to do so in the short term, in order to avoid the impacts of the suspension of USAID funding.

"We have to try to forget a little about American aid, which is considerably larger than other donors. We should explore, for example, the support of the European Union and other development agencies, such as UKAID, to guarantee the continuity of assistance to vulnerable populations," said the president of FOCADE, Frederico João.

The president of the Kwendeleya Association, which works on social cohesion programs, denounces the fact that a significant part of the resources has not been effectively directed to the people in need.

"Many institutions ended up spending more money on administrative costs than on implementing projects. This compromised the effectiveness of the assistance. The problem is not with the government, but also with the organizations that received the funds and didn't know how to apply them properly," says Abudo Gafuro. (Source: DW)