IN THE wake of anti-immigration protests and a policy announcement from the Conservative Party Conference of an intention, if in government, to chop overseas aid to 0.1 per cent, an aid-agency chief executive has spoken of the British public’s generosity and her pride within the UK’s history of welcoming refugees.
The CEO of the agency World Vision UK, Fola Komolafe, said: “I’m so happy with what we did when the Afghans got here in in that point of crisis. I’m so happy with what we did when the Ukraine crisis hit, and folks opened up their homes here. . . That is what makes us good — really good — and compassionate and empathetic and caring, and I need us to proceed to be like that.”
Appointed two years ago, she said that current humanitarian crises had created needs “a lot greater than they’ve ever been in my lifetime”. The cut within the overseas aid budget to 0.3 per cent of GDP had had its parallels elsewhere. Many countries were facing serious economic problems, which resulted in a greater deal with domestic affairs: “rightfully so, since it’s all taxpayers’ money”.
The challenge was to balance this with “the greater call that we now have to be global residents on this planet. . . The right thing is to care, to take into consideration other people outside of ourselves, to offer and to want to do this with great generosity to affect another person’s future. Because there’s a joy and sense of purpose and fulfilment that comes from doing the best thing.”
The NGO sector had “really [to] take into consideration how we will be more creative, more modern. . . We have all the time delivered value for money, we now have’ all the time worked on efficiency, made sure we remit as much of the pound to the sector, but even that’s being challenged,” said Ms Komolafe, who has worked for HSCB and IBM and was CEO of a management consultancy.
The cutting of 60 posts, World Vision UK’s second restructuring inside a 12 months, was announced last month. Tearfund (News, 28 June 2024) and Christian Aid (News, 2 May) have also announced cutbacks. In July, 43 CEOs within the aid sector warned that it was undergoing a “dramatic contraction and alter . . . driven by shrinking funding and fundamental questions on our sector’s legitimacy”.
Between 2020 and 2024, World Vision UK’s income from government grants grew by almost two-thirds to £27.6 million, but donations fell by greater than 40 per cent, to £38.6 million.
WORLD VISIONFola Komolafe at a nursery school in Malawi, where World Vision funds school meals
In her introduction to the charity’s 2024 annual report, Ms Komolafe refers to an “ambitious five-year change programme to rework World Vision UK right into a more efficient and effective organisation”.
The chair, Douglas Millican, writes that implementing that is “hard as we modify well-established ways of working to cut back our operating costs and increase the funds available to support children”. In 2024, the charity, which has a special emphasis on children’s welfare, reached more three million people directly in 181 projects in 37 countries, the report says.
The latest restructuring — triggered mainly by the cut within the ODA budget — had been a “very painful process”, Ms Komolafe said. Help had been given to those made redundant to search out positions in other organisations, inside and beyond the sector.
A YouGov poll in March suggested that 65 per cent of British people favoured increasing defence spending on the expense of overseas aid. But Ms Komolafe pointed to the massive sums donated to DEC appeals as evidence of the general public’s generosity. Many of the massive issues facing the Government, including migration, had their roots in global challenges, she said.
The former Chief of Defence Staff, Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, warned in The Times last week that an extra aid cut could be a “profound strategic error that endangers our national security”.
In private-sector positions, Ms Komolafe had been “often the one female within the room, and typically the one black person within the room”, she recalled. “I find it irresistible. I like being female, and I like being black.” It had given her a “unique perspective” in her current post.
“When I travel, for instance, and I am going to the sector, there’s a singular connection that I feel with every child and each family and each community because they appear like me, most times, and I seem like them, most times. There is already a difference in how they connect and the way they relate to me.
“I’m from Nigeria. I actually have seen poverty: I do know what poverty looks like. I understand it from a deeper perspective, perhaps that helps deepen the conversations that I’m having.”
Asked in regards to the anti-racism statement signed in July by the chief executives of 43 other NGOs, she said: “We can never turn out to be complacent. I’d worry if as a sector we ever got to that place where we thought we’ve solved that problem.”
She drew attention to World Vision’s ethical-storytelling project, which considered “How will we accurately represent the voice of those we’re called to serve?”
Almost the entire charity’s 33,000 employees were locals, accountable to local boards making their very own decisions, she said. “My job is to boost money, to not make the selections for them. We are equal partners together.”
