child sponsor, children

How Child Sponsorship is affected by Covid-19

June 25, 2020

Covid-19 has brought urgent and necessary changes to our Child Sponsorship programme. If you are a Child Sponsor, we know you will be worried about the child your sponsor. We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions below.

As Covid-19 spreads, the world’s most vulnerable people are facing an immense catastrophe. Whether it is from the illness or loss of livelihoods, ActionAid is mobilised around the world to support women and families.

This couldn’t have been done without the generosity of Child Sponsors in Ireland. Thanks to generous supporters hailing from every county in Ireland, ActionAid Ireland has directed €500,000 towards lifesaving Covid-19 responses in communities across Africa and Asia.

With your support, we will be working long-term to lessen the spread, reduce the impact of the disease and support people who have lost their livelihoods. This is only possible with the commitment of amazing people like you. Thank you.

How is ActionAid responding to the coronavirus pandemic?

Anjana and her children in Nepal receiving 1.5 months of food supplies, as well as an infection prevention kit. Sabin Shrestha/ActionAid Nepal

People living in poverty are already faced with the harsh consequences of other humanitarian disasters.

Crowded living conditions mean families are finding it difficult to distance themselves from others. Also, many people cannot access the water, sanitation, healthcare and vital information they need to stay safe.

Through child sponsorship, we have long-standing relationships with many communities in the countries where we work. Right now, we are working around the clock to ensure families are supported.

Through local women’s groups, we are distributing life-saving health information, hygiene kits, and personal protective equipment (PPE) to key workers.

We’re also working to tackle misinformation. This means translating vital public health advice, such as regularly washing hands with soap, into local languages and getting it to the most marginalised and hardest to reach people.

Will this affect the child I sponsor?

As soon as the scale of the health crisis was apparent, ActionAid immediately stopped all mass gatherings. This included our events to collect child messages.

In many of the countries where we work, governments have closed schools and paused large gatherings.

For these reasons, we cannot yet confirm the status of individual sponsored children or their families. But as soon as it is safe to get in touch with each family, we will update you with further news.

This means we will not be able to collect the next scheduled messages from the communities as planned.

I’m sure you’ll understand that the health and well-being of sponsored children, their families and communities is our overriding priority. We ask you to please bear with us as we face this challenge.

Can I still write to the child I sponsor?

Yes, please do! Communication is now more important than ever as we face the challenges that Covid-19 brings.

We have received so many amazing messages of support.

Myla wrote this lovely message to Prencence – the child her family spsonsor.

While we cannot yet deliver these to the children directly, we do encourage you to write, as it is important to stay connected. As soon as it is safe to do so, we will share these messages with the children and their families.

If you would like to write a message, you can do it online here.

Your messages of support always mean so much to the children, their families and communities – thank you!

When will I get an update from or about the child I sponsor?

Unfortunately we do not know when we’ll be able to collect further messages from the children. And once restrictions are lifted, it may take some time to restart all aspects of sponsorship, including collecting messages.

But as soon as we are able, and it is safe to do so, we will again organise fun events for the children to participate in, including our very special child message activities.

See below for a message from children in Nepal:

How can I keep informed?

The situation is constantly evolving, and we are working with our colleagues across the world to gather the latest updates.

We will be sending updates to child sponsors via post and email as soon as we can, but if you have any further questions, please email info@actionaid.dev10.effectordev.ie or phone 01 878 7911

Thank you again for your compassion at this difficult time. You are helping to #StopTheSpread and save lives.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.

Sponsored Child, Shathi (10) from Bangladesh. Photo: Ariful Islam/ActionAid