AFTER THE CUTS: HOW SAVE THE CHILDREN GULU ADAPTED WHEN USAID FUNDING ENDED

When USAID funding disappeared, the question for Save the Children Gulu was not whether children still needed help. They did. The harder question was how to keep protecting them with fewer resources. What followed was not retreat, but reinvention, building on local systems, empowering communities and finding new ways to keep child protection work alive.

I walked into the office of Save the Children International, Gulu Branch, with one question in mind: how is an organisation meant to protect children when its biggest donor pulls out?

I was there to explore a question affecting almost every NGO in Uganda today: What happens when funding is cut? Inside, I met Malcolm Nkurunungi, the Child Rights Governance Programme Officer. For over an hour, he walked me through how Save the Children Gulu, which operates in most districts of Northern Uganda, has survived, adapted and even innovated in the absence of USAID funding.

For many years, USAID had been one of the largest funders of humanitarian and development work in Uganda. In Northern Uganda, they supported health, education, governance and child protection programmes. When funding seized, the effect was immediately felt across the sector. Organisations had to reduce staff, close projects and scale down operations.

At Save the Children Gulu, the challenge was clear: regional needs remained high, but resources had been reduced. According to Malcolm, the organisation had to ask itself hard questions. Which programmes could continue? Which ones had to pause? And how could they continue to protect children with less funds?

One of the most important points he made during the interview was: “Even while USAID funding was there, Save the Children always focused on a proactive approach, sustainability and creativity. We focused on partnerships with Government, local partners and established agencies: schools, hospitals and police.”

This meant that when the funding cuts came, Save the Children was not starting from scratch. Its existing relationships with government institutions and other local structures provided a foundation for continuing its work.

Because these agencies are funded by the government, the systems and relationships the organisation had built remained in place even when funding stopped. This, he said, allowed Save the Children to continue operating despite having fewer resources.

With a smaller budget, however, the organisation had to change how it delivered programmes. Malcolm outlined several key shifts.

Training Fewer People, but Training Trainers

“We embarked on reducing the number of people we train, who later go back and train their colleagues,” he explained. Instead of training 100 people directly, Save the Children now trains a smaller group of focal point persons.

These are teachers, health workers and police officers. That smaller group then trains their colleagues within their institutions. This approach has two benefits. First, it reduces costs. Second, it builds capacity within institutions that already have budgets.

“We trained schools, trained trainers for trainees, built the capacity of focal point persons, and most of these have budgets within their reach,” he said.

Building Capacity of Existing Structures

Rather than creating parallel systems, Save the Children focused on strengthening what was already there. “We built the capacity of police officers, who already know what they were doing,” Malcolm told me. The goal was to give them additional skills in child protection, case management and referral so that they could handle cases more effectively within their normal work. The same approach was applied to schools and health facilities. By working through existing staff, the organisation ensured that knowledge and skills remained even after a project ended.

Shared Services and Government Collaboration

Save the Children also moved towards sharing services with government. “We shared services with government, and encouraged them to utilise social services in the country,” he said.

This meant aligning programmes with government structures and encouraging the use of existing social services instead of creating separate NGO-run systems. The funding cut forced the team in Gulu to think differently, and several innovations emerged.

Community Feedback and Beneficiary-Led Initiatives

One of the biggest changes was putting the community at the centre of decision-making. “The innovative ideas involved the community themselves through their feedback, initiated by them, the beneficiaries, and consultation by the focal point persons,” he said.

Instead of designing programmes in the office and taking them to the community, the team now starts with community consultation. Focal point persons gather feedback, and programmes are shaped by what beneficiaries say they need.

Referrals to non-USAID Partners

With limited funds, Save the Children could not address every case directly. “We also had partners who were not USAID-funded, and they referred cases and encouraged referrals to their partners,” Malcolm explained. This created a network through which cases could be referred to other organisations that still had funding, ensuring children did not lose access to support.

Locally Adopted Solutions

The team was encouraged to develop solutions using local resources. “We built capacity in management, for example, locally adopted solutions like coming up with their own initiatives,” he said. This shifted the role of staff from simply implementing donor projects to actively problem-solving and innovating at the local level.

Supporting Refugee Professionals

One of the most striking innovations involved refugees themselves. “Among the beneficiaries, refugees, for example, were people who were professionals in their country of origin, nurses, teachers, plus other professionals. Save the Children helped them get licensed in Uganda so that they could provide services to their own people,” he said.

By supporting refugee nurses and teachers to get licensed in Uganda, Save the Children helped communities access services from people they already trust. “The beauty of it,” Malcolm added, “is that their people trust them more than they trust other people we employ.” This not only improved service delivery but also created livelihoods for refugees.

Psychological First Aid and Basic Support

Despite the cuts, the organisation continued to provide essential support, including psychological first aid and access to land to help beneficiaries sustain themselves. Malcolm was honest about what had been lost as a result of the funding cuts.

“The limitations were, for example, that emergency responses could no longer be addressed. This included receiving new refugees because they had to sustain those they already had, supporting family verification or family tracing, and maintaining the referral mechanism, which had become overstretched.”

The impact was particularly clear in the organisation’s ability to respond to new needs. While ongoing programmes continued, resources were increasingly directed towards supporting existing beneficiaries, leaving less capacity to take on new emergencies.

Family tracing and verification became more difficult, while the referral mechanism was also placed under greater strain. The organisation had to prioritise, focusing its limited resources on those it was already supporting rather than expanding its response to new, large-scale needs.

Looking for New Funding

When I asked about funding, Malcolm said the organisation is actively seeking new opportunities. “Save the Children keeps on trying different funding opportunities, while continuing to present the current needs from the community and the risks they may pose in the future.”

The approach is two-fold. First, the organisation continues to apply for grants from other donors. Second, it documents and presents community needs and emerging risks to make the case for continued support.

The message to donors is no longer simply, “We need money.” Instead, it is: “These are the needs, these are the risks if they are not addressed, and here is how we can work together with government and community to respond.”

A Different Way Forward

Save the Children Gulu Branch covers Northern Uganda and operates in most districts across the region. Malcolm described it as “the most delicate region in the country.” The region faces unique challenges, including post-conflict recovery, displacement, poverty and the vulnerability of children.

That is why, despite the funding cuts, the organisation continues to prioritise its work in the region. The shift towards sustainability and partnerships is particularly important in this context. It helps ensure that, even with less external funding, local systems can continue to protect children.

My conversation with Malcolm Nkurunungi showed that the USAID funding cut did not end child rights work in Gulu. It forced a shift: from direct implementation to capacity building, from NGO-led to community- and government-led approaches, from large-scale training to training-of-trainers, and from waiting for grants to innovating locally.

The challenges are real. Emergency response and family tracing have been affected. But the innovations in community feedback, refugee professionals, shared services and locally adopted solutions show that progress is still possible.

As Malcolm put it, Save the Children continues to present community needs and risks while seeking new funding opportunities. In the meantime, it is doing the work with the partners and systems it has.

For organisations, government and even local businesses in Northern Uganda, this period presents both a challenge and an opportunity: to build systems that will outlast any single donor.