Approximately six million people have died in the conflict in the eastern D.R.C. since 1996. For decades, numerous armed groups have competed for power and control of this vast nation’s potential fortune.

Cuts to foreign assistance directly impacted the work of some of the religious freedom organizations at the summit. USAID’s top NGO recipient for fiscal years 2013-2022 was Catholic Relief Services at $4.6 billion.

Most humanitarian agencies operate just ahead of insolvency in the best of times, Nate Radomski, the executive director of American Jesuits International, says.

Catholic institutions in Zimbabwe and other African states once could rely on support from retired missionaries. Now the decline in missionary numbers has left African religious communities facing a financial crunch.

A new report published in the U.K. medical journal The Lancet indicates that far from exaggerating the human suffering in Gaza, the ministry has likely underestimated the true number of the dead by as much as 41 percent.

More than 60 Catholic institutions, congregations and individuals have signed a letter imploring Mr. Biden to endorse a new round of assistance to the world’s most indebted nations from the International Monetary Fund.