Economic Inclusion In The News

With Global Aid in Retreat, a Pooled Philanthropic Fund Backs Cities on the Front Lines of Migration

By Eden Stiffman

This article first appeared on the Chronicle of Philanthropy. MMC engages in content partnerships with several organizations, and cross-posting does not indicate an endorsement or agreement.

Freetown, Sierra Leone, created a waste-management program that loans tricycles to youth-run micro enterprises in informal settlements. These enterprises have paid back 50 percent of the cost of the tricycle, which the city then uses to build new tricycles and support more enterprises. The project secured $1 million from a multilateral bank.

Backed by donors including the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the project channels resources directly to municipal governments, helping them design their own solutions.

With international government aid in retreat — from the shuttering of USAID to deep cuts at the United Nations and in European giving — migration programs are among the hardest hit. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that as much as $2.3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid earmarked for migration and displacement projects has been slashed. Funders are looking for new ways to ensure people escaping political conflict and persecution, economic hardship, and the escalating impacts of climate change — and the communities they join — have the support they need.

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