HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — The nonprofit Oxfam announced Tuesday it would leave Cuba due to pandemic-induced financial problems that have led the organisation to shutter a number of its offices around the world.

The decision was “accelerated by the pandemic and its impact on Oxfam’s finances, in particular difficulties in fundraising in other countries,” the nonprofit’s representative in Cuba, Elena Gentili, said in Spanish during a press conference.

In May 2020 Oxfam, which is actually a confederation of approximately 20 smaller organisations, announced that it planned to close around 18 offices, including those in Afghanistan, Haiti, Cuba and Egypt. 

This would leave the organisation with a presence in 48 countries.

It additionally announced the termination of 1,450 positions out of a workforce of some 5,000 people.

Oxfam has been present in Cuba since 1993 when the country was in a deep economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main ally and financial backer.

Most notably Oxfam has implemented agricultural development and natural disaster management projects in Cuba, through its annual budget of US$1 to US$1.5 million.

The organization is leaving Cuba as the island nation struggles through a new economic crisis, its worst since the 1990s, caused by the drop in tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a tightening of the US embargo, in force since 1962.