Oxfam will have to spend up to 20 per cent more to help the same amount of beneficiaries, following a drop in the value of the pound after the referendum result, its director of fundraising said earlier this week.
Tim Hunter, director of fundraising at Oxfam, said that the weakness of sterling against the other major international currencies meant that his organisation – which funds the majority of its aid work in US dollars - would be spending more of its reserves than usual to continue its work.
Hunter was speaking during a panel discussion on Brexit at the Institute of Fundraising annual convention.
“Most of our income is in either pounds or euros and most of our expenditure is in dollars,” he said. “Somewhere between 10 to 20 per cent greater expenditure requirements in our programmes arrived last Thursday and look like they’re here to stay.
“We can either cut back on our programmes – which we don’t want to do – or we can try and find that money somewhere. We operate at a fairly lean reserve and those reserves are going to quite quickly be affected by that level of shift”.
Hunter also said that, amongst Brexit-backing Tories, there "wasn't much appetite" for the continuation of international aid funding.
Related articles
