Preserving relationships and promoting fairness

Our work on ethics and project closure has emphasized community engagement for building trusting relationships, upholding ideals of procedural justice, and taking more informed action [13,14]. CDP has long prioritized community engagement and leadership. Ethical closure requires fair processes, with concern for equity in closure decisions and following exit. In recent weeks, CDP focused on identifying exit actions that do not require financial resources to honor relationships and support “closing well” even abruptly by, for example, maintaining communication with local partners. Through formal and continued open communication with government and community partners using online or instant messaging applications, CDP has sought to preserve relationships and demonstrate respect towards partners.

Being transparent and accountable

Transparency is vital in humanitarian response activities and in international collaborations. It fosters trust and engagement, demonstrates respect for local actors and supports them to plan effectively. Despite the confusion and limited instruction from USAID, CDP is maintaining trust with its local partners through openness and honesty. They have written to government and community partners and hosted face-to-face meetings with available partners to explain what they know about the cuts and their immediate impacts. Amidst the sudden freeze of established contracts, local CDP responders remain accountable to staff and communities in these ways, as well as to USAID, by preparing their final report according to specifications.

Preventing harms

Humanitarian organizations should seek to anticipate, prevent and mitigate harms that may occur during or due to their interventions. Some projects, like CDP’s, focus explicitly on averting future crises or lessening their effects. Other humanitarians are working on life-threatening disease or food security, for example. When projects are forced to close urgently under duress, harm – to health, finance, and often infrastructure – is inevitable and often severe. We have seen before that with abrupt closure, local and global health can be placed in peril, advances in reducing global inequities set back, and the potential for global health emergencies increased [15].

In the CDP project, emergency kits and other resources have gone undistributed in the Agno River Basin. Based on an assessment of its inventory, CDP found that 1,467 disaster preparedness bags packed with emergency supplies such as a blanket, flashlight, and first aid kits were intended to be provided to participants at the flood evacuation simulation drill. This includes hundreds of family level preparedness booklets, containing key information on disaster risk reduction (DRR), local early warning systems, emergency hotlines, and a guide for family disaster risk reduction planning that are now left in boxes. Discontinuing the flood simulation exercises may eliminate opportunities to practice and gain feedback on plans developed through local participatory processes, undermining capacity to avert and mitigate future harm, promote preparedness, build resilience, and (genuinely) wasting resources. At the organizational level, while CDP has lost a portion of funds for its operational expenses, it was able to secure funding to cover half of its staff salaries for a month avoiding immediate layoffs and the most imminent harms to staff and their families as they look for job opportunities. Fortunately, some staff found new jobs, while several others were re-assigned to new projects instead of hiring new personnel.

Sustaining project gains and shifting towards localization

Even though humanitarian organizations are often focused on immediate crises, they also need to be concerned for the long-term well-being of communities and aim at sustaining projects’ gains to the extent possible. This approach supports preparedness and can advance local development. Despite the lack of time and resources to conduct turn-over ceremonies as would have normally accompanied the end of CDP’s project, copies of the finalized and formatted participatory disaster risk reduction plans and contingency plans formulated by the communities were provided to the local government. It is noteworthy that half have been recently adopted through council resolutions.

In many settings globally, local organizations continue to provide support to communities despite constraints imposed by the recent cuts.[9] All are likely to be seeking new funding streams. CDP has focused on building sustainable benefits, training consultancies, fundraising, selling merchandise, local partnerships, and grant writing. Anticipating the end of the 90-day stop work order, CDP has considered other means to pursue their work with local partners and government agencies and continue DRR awareness activities and the provision of disaster preparedness kits to families in the river basin. These partners are also prioritized and supported in other capacity development programs hosted by CDP. The organization fosters “asset-based approaches” by supporting natural, infrastructure, financial, political, social, cultural, and human capital of partner communities and engaging in capacity building (e.g., training “community facilitators” for participatory risk assessments and DRRM planning). CDP is committed to providing continued support, even if scaled back or reconfigured.

Conclusion

While these are undoubtedly unprecedented times, and many local and international actors are facing seemingly impossible conditions, it is important to recognize that organizations like CDP are doing their best within extreme constraints. The abrupt nature of USAID’s funding withdrawal means that, in many cases, the conditions necessary for an ethical and well-planned closure—such as adequate time, resources, and preparation—are simply not available. Yet, the CDP example shows that even in the face of forced closure due to funding cuts, it is still possible for humanitarian organizations to uphold ethical principles and strive to safeguard the health and well-being of communities. It remains our collective responsibility to advocate for global health justice.