funding

The Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which received a grant of R866-million in 2013/14, 16 percent more than the previous year, was established in 1990 to be the country’s primary agricultural scientific research institution, but has suffered from years of neglect and underfunding.

In its annual report, the ARC paints a picture of an organisation suffering from chronic underfunding and trying to do the best with the resources available.

The Solidarity Helping Hand confirms that a relief fund has been opened after the robbery at Pretoria’s President Kruger children’s home on 29 October 2014.

In a press statement, Helping Hand states that it wants to support the children’s home as much as possible during this crisis.

The organisation asserts that, “We have therefore already contributed R10 000 towards a relief fund. Our hope is that with the public’s help, we will be able to replace most of the home’s losses.”

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) plans to raise R10 million in November 2014 to keep the organisation afloat, the organisation is relying on public donations, hoping big funders will then follow.

Mark Heywood, one of TAC’s directors states that, “The TAC thinks there is a red light over the country's response to the HIV epidemic," following recent statistics released by the Human Sciences Research Council, which show that in 767 people died each day in South Africa from AIDS related illnesses in 2012, 280,000 in a year.

Statistics South Africa's (Stats SA) poverty survey will cost taxpayers R120 million, with the biggest chunk to be spent on the salaries of 551 temporary field workers, and on printing and transport.

Stats SA manager for household surveys, Moses Mnyaka, says the agency has asked the Treasury for R200 million for the Living Conditions Survey 2014-2015 but, because of austerity measures, a lesser amount had been approved.

Nsanje District Commissioner, Harry Phiri, says that the Kalondolondo Social audit programme should start assessing projects implemented by the country's non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Phiri says that most of the NGOs in Malawi receive more funds from donors, adding that the funds are not properly handled and therefore need to be assessed.

His opinion comes at a time when the district is to have its 25 Local Development Fund (LDF) teacher houses project audited by the Kalondolondo programme.

The Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust says that the Parlotones fundraising performance for the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital has been postponed due to the lead singer's surgery.
 
In a press statement, spokesperson, Vuyo Lutseke, "The Parlotones fund-raising performance at Pappas restaurant on Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton has been cancelled due to lead singer Kahn Morbee needing emergency surgery on his vocal cords."
 
Lutseke says that a new date for the children's hospital fundraiser will be announced once rehabilitation has commenced.
 

The United Nations (UN) Security Council is calling for urgent funding to step up deliveries of desperately-needed aid as South Sudan's food crisis is now the worst in the world. 

The agency says that approximately 3.9 million people - a staggering one in three people throughout the country - are going hungry as fighting continues in that country.

The UN Security Council describes a “catastrophic food insecurity situation in South Sudan that is now the worst in the world” saying the country is on the threshold of a full-blown famine if fighting continues. 

Mobility 4 Life, a non-governmental organisation, is changing lives by giving prosthetic limbs to amputees from rural and poor areas.

The organisation estimates that there are 25 000 who cannot access prostheses because of issues such as long waiting lists at private or public hospitals where the services are usually provided.

It says with money collected from corporate social investment initiatives, the organisation hopes to assist more people who do not have the means to access even the most basic of primary healthcare.

Zimbabwe’s civil society organisations are reeling from the global financial crisis as donor aid slows down due to the country’s nagging political deadlock which has dragged on for years.

The situation has also led to a number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) reportedly scaling down operations because of lack of funding.

The NGO sector is moving away from being a growing sector that is heavily involved in various activities, ranging from social justice, food aid, health services and education to providing water purification tablets during a severe cholera outbreak.