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Save the Children has halted a decades-long partnership with BCG over its work on Gaza, after the consultancy helped develop a contentious aid scheme and modelled the costs of relocating Palestinians out of the strip.
Save the Children International chief executive Inger Ashing wrote to staff on Monday to say the charity was “appalled and deeply disturbed” by the Financial Times’ coverage of BCG’s work in Gaza.
She told staff that Save the Children had “suspended all ongoing work” with BCG pending an external investigation into its processes.
The UK-based charity told the FT it suspended its partnership with BCG on June 13, shortly after the consultancy first acknowledged the Gaza-related project and said it had halted the work.
The FT detailed in recent days how BCG staff helped model the costs of relocating Palestinians from Gaza and had been more involved with the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation than it had publicly acknowledged.
BCG has maintained that two partners misled senior executives to carry out “unauthorised work”, and that it has since stopped the work and dismissed the partners.
Ashing said in her message to Save the Children staff that the NGO “moved quickly to meet with their leadership to demand an explanation when the news regarding their involvement in designing the GHF broke”. BCG’s involvement was first reported by the Washington Post in June.
“Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation,” Ashing said. She added that Save the Children was “awaiting a formal response” after following up with BCG at the weekend.
BCG has been a “proud partner” of Save the Children since 2006, according to a page on the consultancy firm’s website, which details a “range of strategic, operational, and organisational issues” that it has worked on “side by side” with the charity.
Its work with Save the Children has included pro bono and “low-bono” — or significantly discounted — support, according to Ashing’s memo.
BCG says it serves on multiple Save the Children boards globally and seconds its consultants to the charity, as well as helping with “strategic, operational, and organisational issues” and specific programmes, including with refugee children.
The consultancy said: “BCG values our long-standing relationship with Save the Children and hope to continue supporting their valuable work in the future.
“We deeply regret the actions of the two former partners, who were swiftly exited from the firm. BCG remains committed to taking all necessary steps to strengthen our safeguards to ensure that this never happens again.”
Save the Children said the charity “had repeatedly warned publicly that any militarised aid distribution system, such as that set up by the GHF, would carry catastrophic consequences”.
“We continue to advocate for aid delivery in Gaza that is guided by humanitarian principles . . . free from political interference. Save the Children remains operational in Gaza, as we have been for decades, prepared to deliver life-saving support.”
Additional reporting by Stephen Foley
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