The most significant increase in SCOWP funding during its existence occurred in 2019. Since April of that year, the start of the Department for International Development's (DFID) five-year welfare programme, SCOWP has delivered its highest-ever level of welfare grants to needy pre-independence veterans and widows throughout the Commonwealth. For many beneficiaries the grants, equivalent to the cost of two meals a day in their country, have meant a very significant increase in their welfare, a huge leap beyond RCEL’s previous aim of providing
one meal a day.

During 2019 the number of veterans and widows assisted by SCOWP funds reduced to 7,238 down from 7,664 in 2018, a reduction of 5.5%. Our global welfare distribution to 57 Member Organisations exceeded £5M from RCEL’s own funds and those of other Founder RCEL Members and UK Service Charities. This sum included £925,617 of Agency payments assisting 897 individual welfare cases on behalf of some 40 UK-based charities. The Royal Canadian Legion is gratefully acknowledged for its generosity in 2019, contributing over £151,100 of welfare support to Member Organisations in the Caribbean; without this generous support our welfare grants elsewhere would be greatly diminished. A consequence of the DFID programme was that welfare grants to veterans and widows in eight Caribbean nations, previously funded by The Royal Canadian Legion, are now made at a higher level and paid direct by SCOWP to member organisations in Antigua, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia and St Vincent. The Royal Canadian Legion has matched this greater funding and increased their grants to beneficiaries in The Bahamas and Trinidad & Tobago. Other Founder Members also contributed significantly with The Returned & Services League of Australia and The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association assisting a number of beneficiaries throughout their countries.

Since last year’s report, the good work by RCEL Project Officers Johanna Lewin in the Caribbean and Derrick Cobbinah in West Africa has resulted in a greater number of both pre- and post independence veterans and widows coming to light to receive SCOWP and Agency grants. The number of pre-independence Antiguan veterans has increased from 7 to 14 and in Jamaica, we are now supporting 18 veterans and widows. Meanwhile in Ghana and Sierra Leone, following the welcome announcement of the DFID programme there was an upsurge in demand for welfare funds to support newly identified veterans and widows.
Use of SCOWP and Trustee Reserves was required to meet these unbudgeted in-year payments.

Our disbursement of grants from Blind Veterans UK (BV UK) continues. Some 210 veterans were supported, down from 219 in 2018, but this £120 annual grant is highly valued by beneficiaries. The continued BV UK support is gratefully acknowledged.

During 2019 several natural disasters hit Commonwealth nations, though mercifully there were no reported fatalities in our beneficiaries. In February, Cyclone GELENA hit Rodrigues Island, off Mauritius. SCOWP provided five £300 grants to veterans to recover following damage to crops in their market gardens. In mid-March, Cyclone IDAI struck Malawi and Zimbabwe which brought violent winds and caused severe flooding killing at least 1,000 people along its path. RCEL responded by sending £5,000 each to our member organisations; The Kings African Veterans Trust in Malawi and ZANE in Zimbabwe, to meet veterans’ immediate needs. In September, Hurricane DORIAN hit the Bahamas, the most intense hurricane on record to strike the islands and the country’s worst natural disaster. The Royal Canadian Legion reported that despite the hurricane passing over Grand Bahama, all three beneficiaries were unscathed.