Citation, extracts and comment from me below.
CITATION: Impact of two decades of humanitarian and development assistance and the projected mortality consequences of current defunding to 2030: retrospective evaluation and forecasting analysis
De Silva A et al. Lancet Global Health 2026
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(26)00008-2/fulltext
'ODA funding has played a decisive role in reducing preventable mortality across LMICs over the past two decades, and the abrupt withdrawal of this support threatens to cause millions of avoidable deaths, reversing decades of progress in global health.'
The report concludes: 'Even under mild defunding scenarios that merely continue current downward trends, substantial increases in preventable adult and child deaths — potentially amounting to tens of millions of excess deaths — are likely in the coming years. Beyond the immediate and dramatic human toll, these funding cuts risk reversing decades of hard-won progress in development and global health, particularly in the most vulnerable countries.
I have also been moved by the testimonies of our colleagues whose lives were upended by the closure of USAID.
As one person said: "I was in my early/mid-career, I had just landed in a role at USAID that would have allowed me to build the career I wanted in the specialties I wanted, and I had built an amazing network of colleagues and mentors. It’s so painful because I remember thinking at the start of my job, “Phew, I can finally stay here for a bit and build something,” only for it to be ripped apart 6 months later."
Many people have lost not only their jobs, but their homes.
I have heard that many of our partner organisations have been badly hit also.
It is impossible to know the impact of ODA cuts on the global evidence ecosystem, but they will certainly have slowed down progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information.
The reduction in the capacity of the World Health Organization has been profound, with more than 2,000 job losses, and with remaining staff having an even greater workload than they had previously.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org