As most HIFA members are probably aware, on January 21, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance funding, arguing that the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests.” The freeze affected primarily the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency created by Congress in 1961 to lead America’s development and humanitarian assistance.
By early February, USAID contractors and implementing partners, including those providing humanitarian assistance and emergency food relief, began receiving stop-work orders. Some of these contractors and implementing partners then received communication that the stop-work orders were lifted, but then in many cases were contacted again to say the stop-work orders were still in effect.
Unelected Presidential Advisor Elon Musk bragged on X on February 3 that “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could have gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” Under the direction of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), USAID’s headquarters in Washington, DC was closed, over 4,000 USAID staff terminated, and another 4,765 direct hires placed on administrative leave.
Effectively gutting the USAID workforce means that actions to issue waivers for lifesaving programs, as the Trump Administration claimed it was doing, or to support the continuance of “approved” programs, are not happening.
USAID’s payment system is not accessible. As a result, most contractors and implementing partners have not been paid for work they did before the freeze, and many have been forced to lay off and furlough staff or close down. While U.S. Secretary of State Macro Rubio, now the acting administrator of USAID, repeatedly said he had issued a blanket waiver for lifesaving programs, including food and medical aid, no staff at implementing partners or USAID means promises of such waivers are cruel hoaxes.
In early March, Rubio announced that 5,200 USAID programs had been terminated and that about 1000 USAID programs would be continued but administered by the State Department.
Aside from the immediate damage to health and health security that the decimation of USAID poses, HIFA members should know that the assault on USAID has removed access to the world’s largest public repository of development assistance documentation, the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse. While the URL leads to the message, “The resource you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable,” it is clear from the draconian cuts to USAID programs and staff that it is not a priority for the Trump Administration to make development knowledge and information available.
In addition to stopping the delivery of food and humanitarian assistance, the Trump Administration also ended the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) which monitored drought, crop production, food prices, and other indicators in order to forecast food insecurity in more than 30 countries. FEWS NET was created following the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, which killed an estimated 400,000 to 1 million people – and caught the world off guard. President Ronald Reagan then challenged USAID to create a system to provide early warning and inform international relief efforts in an evidence-based way. Managed by contractor Chemonics International, FEWS NET employed researchers in the United States and around the world to provide eight-month projections of where food crises will likely emerge. Now, its work to prevent hunger in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and many other countries has been stopped. Amid the aid freeze, FEWS NET has no funding to pay staff in Washington or those working on the ground. The wealth of data that underpinned global analysis on food security – used by researchers around the world and paid for by the American people – has been pulled offline.
These are only two examples of public information resources funded by American taxpayers through USAID that have been silenced. I am sure there are others. I encourage all HIFA members to share what they are seeing with respect to silending of development information and learning.
Lani
HIFA profile: Lani Rice Marquez works with the University Research Company and is based in USA. Interests: Quality improvement, knowledge management. Extensive experience with technical writing and editing and facilitation of webinars and peer-to-peer learning activities. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/lani-rice lanimarq18 AT gmail.com