Anastasia Leveckis: International NGOs – humanitarian organisations or political activists?

Anastasia Leveckis is a researcher in the field of Environmental Psychology and campaigns to stop the exploitation of children by International NGOs.

On July 16^th this year, Oxfam held a parliamentary reception in the Palace of Westminster to promote its work in Gaza. Appearing with them at that parliamentary reception was Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian journalist.

While Abubaker was being applauded by Oxfam staff and the MPs in attendance, what Oxfam failed to mention was that Abubaker Abed is not only someone who described the October 7^th attack on Israel as a “great day” and called for “Israel to be wiped off the planet”, he has also posted footage of himself chatting and laughing with masked Hamas terrorists at the handover of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

While questions are being asked as to how this man was allowed onto the parliamentary estate, the bigger question being asked is: why would Oxfam want to associate themselves with this man?

The answer to that question is quite simple. Oxfam and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) like them no longer operate as humanitarian organisations; they have become political activists, who have since October 2023 been ideologically captured by the pro-Palestinian movement. So, for Oxfam, the activities of this man are overlooked in their all-consuming championing of the Palestinian cause.

Since November 2023 Oxfam has almost solely focused its attention on the situation in Gaza. Many people will say that they are right to do so as the citizens of Gaza are experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, but there is an International NGO that disagrees with that claim – and that NGO is Oxfam! On 14^th April this year, Oxfam declared that Sudan is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and went on to condemn the world for looking away and ignoring this humanitarian disaster. Yet since Oxfam made that statement, they have paid little attention to Sudan.

Oxfam has posted sixty-one times on their X account since then, yet only one of those posts has highlighted the situation in Sudan (on May 28^th) – the other 60 posts have been about Gaza. They are currently running two high profile campaigns in their shops and across social media, neither are those campaigns relate to the situation in Sudan.

One of the campaigns is calling for a ban on arms sales to Israel, and the second is asking people to upload to social media a photo of their hand with a red line drawn across it to promote their support for the campaign: “A red line has been crossed in Gaza.” Is ignoring the suffering of a people that they themselves have declared to be experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world the actions of a humanitarian organisation? No, but for Oxfam their humanitarian work now plays a supporting role to their political activism.

Oxfam are not the only NGO that now appears to prioritise political activism over their humanitarian role. The website of UNICEF leads with the banner: “Helping Children around the World.” It then directs you to donate to support the children of Gaza under the headline: “Israel has declared war on children”. This sits alongside a demand for action to be taken against Israel by the UK government.

But when was the last time anyone heard UNICEF demanding UK government support for the one million children aged under five-years-old who are suffering acute starvation in Yemen? Sadly, the children of Yemen are not a priority for UNICEF as their plight does not afford UNICEF the opportunity to promote their pro-Palestine agenda.

To those who say this isn’t the case, ask yourself why UNICEF have been so vocal in condemning the killing of aid workers by the IDF in Gaza but had nothing to say when aid workers were killed in Sudan? Why have they had nothing to say about Sudanese children being forced to serve as child soldiers? Nothing to say about the 24.5 million Sudanese people in desperate need of humanitarian aid? In fact, nothing to say about Sudan at all.

British NGO Save the Children are also selective when deciding which of the worlds’ children they choose to support. They repeatedly state that children in Gaza are being starved by design and demand that the UK government stops selling arms to Israel. Yet they have had little to say about Israeli children being held hostage by Hamas. When they did mention those Israeli child hostages, it typically consisted of a brief mention, a single sentence acknowledging their presence in Gaza, as part of a highly detailed account of the experiences of children in Gaza.

And why haven’t we heard Save the Children demand the UK Government intervene in the conflicts in Sudan and Yemen that are having such a devastating impact on the children in those countries? Children in Sudan and Yemen can only dream that their plight receives the level of attention from Save the Children that the children of Gaza receive.

So, why should this matter to the British taxpayer? Supporters of these NGOs will defend their actions by claiming that they are funded by voluntary donations from individuals who are aware of and support their actions. But it is simply not true to say that they are solely funded by voluntary donations. All of these NGOs receive a huge amount of money from the UK taxpayer via UK Government funding.

Oxfam received £21.8 million in funding from the UK government in 2018, and while funding has fluctuated in the years since then due to safeguarding concerns, they received £231,000 in 2023 and an undisclosed amount in 2025. Save the Children, according to its own records, received £61 million last year from the UK government. This donation followed several years during which they were also denied UK Government funding due to safeguarding concerns. In 2023 the UK government gave UNICEF £175 million, with an additional £4.5 million in 2024 for their work in Gaza and £3.4 million for humanitarian relief. In fact, according to UN data, in 2024 45 per cent of all humanitarian aid went to Gaza.

We, as UK taxpayers, are funding these NGOs through our taxes and so we have a right to know that that funding is being used for the humanitarian work that it is intended; not for political activism that attaches itself to and promotes high profile humanitarian causes, while overlooking the very people that they themselves have declared to be suffering the worst humanitarian disaster the world is currently seeing.