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They call themselves as the "emergency rescue team". Following being let go when international support faced cuts earlier this year, a group of committed professionals opted to create their own rescue package.

Choosing not to "remain in despair", an ex-staffer, along with equally dedicated former agency staff, initiated efforts to save some of the essential projects that faced closure after the cuts.

At present, close to 80 projects have been preserved by a facilitation effort managed by Rosenbaum and additional ex- agency employees, which has secured them over $110m in new funding. The team behind the Project Resource Optimization initiative calculates it will benefit 40 million people, encompassing many infants and toddlers.

After the office shutdown, funds were halted, thousands of employees were laid off, and projects worldwide either ended suddenly or were barely continuing toward what the leader calls "termination points".

He and some of his colleagues were approached by a philanthropic organization that "aimed to figure out how they could maximize the impact of their limited resources".

They developed a selection from the ended initiatives, pinpointing those "offering the most vital support per dollar" and where a alternative supporter could realistically intervene and continue the work.

They quickly realised the demand was wider than that first organization and commenced to reach out to further funding sources.

"We dubbed ourselves the lifeboat crew at the beginning," states the economist. "The organization has been failing, and there are insufficient lifeboats for each programme to board, and so we're striving to literally rescue as many infants as we can, secure spots for these lifeboats as feasible, via the initiatives that are offering assistance."

The initiative, now operating as part of a research organization, has garnered backing for numerous programmes on its roster in more than 30 countries. A few have had initial backing returned. Nine were not able to be saved in time.

Financial support has originated from a blend of charitable organizations and wealthy individuals. The majority choose to be unidentified.

"The supporters come from diverse backgrounds and opinions, but the unifying theme that we've encountered from them is, 'I feel horrified by what's going on. I really want to discover an approach to help,'" says Rosenbaum.

"I believe that there was an 'aha moment' for the entire team as we began operating on this, that this opened up an opportunity to transition from the passive sadness, dwelling on the gloom of everything that was unfolding around us, to having a constructive endeavor to really sink our teeth into."

An example programme that has obtained support through the effort is work by the Alima to deliver care encompassing care for malnourished children, maternity services and crucial pediatric vaccinations in Mali.

It is crucial to maintain these operations, says the economist, not only because reinitiating work if they ended would be extremely costly but also because of how much trust would be lost in the zones of instability if the group pulled out.

"The organization informed us […] 'there is fear that if we walk away, we may lose our place.'"

Projects with longer-term goals, such as strengthening health systems, or in other fields such as schooling, have remained outside the initiative's scope. It also is not trying to preserve programmes forever but to "create a window for the entities and, truthfully, the larger network, to figure out a sustainable answer".

After securing support for every initiative on its original roster, the initiative states it will now focus on assisting additional individuals with "established, economical measures".