Navigating Trump's funding cuts demands innovation, resilience

THE post-inauguration and rapid-fire release of executive actions by US President Donald Trump appear, on one hand, to be a significant instance of the Outrage Industrial Complex (OIC).

- MICHAEL SUTCLIFFE

It is almost as if Trump is feeding this beast to always have some immediate fight and those who disagree are wrong and are fools.

On the other hand, many of these actions have been undertaken swiftly and have had an immediate and negative impact on people.

Many programmes have been cancelled with immediate effect without any consideration of the effect such actions would have on people and programmes which are trying to find solutions to health, educational, environmental and other global issues.

There can be no doubt that the impact in South Africa has been ascertained. Motivating that in the use of health programmes, such cuts have been a "blunt knife".

While difficult to estimate the immediate financial losses, estimates running into could well over $244million for funding commitments held with US governmental institutions to cuts immediately affect services being provided in areas like HIV and TB programmes, and will certainly slow down efforts to develop new treatments, and vaccines for HIV and TB.

The cuts also require large-scale layoffs of professional scientists, health professionals and others, all of which could derail the development of the country's next generation of scientists.

It must be noted that research institutions have a great record of collaboration with research institutions in the US, and cuts will damage knowledge discovery, enhancement of talent, stability and supporting skills development.

These cuts will have a ripple effect across the world.

And of course, there will be others, as yet undocumented, impacts on US businesses, people and institutions.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has correctly cautioned that this is a crucial moment for the country to strengthen its commitment to self-reliance and to portray a vision of resilience amidst adversity.