Funds of the richest nation in the world have once made from the largest global agency to help the intricate network of small, medium and large organizations that provided assistance: HIV drugs for more than 20 million people; nutritional supplements for starving children; Support for refugees, orphans and women beaten violence.
Now that network develops. Trump’s administration frozen the side of help 90 days and planned to lose the US International Development Agency at only 5 percent of its workforce, although the federal judge Paused on Friday. Given the wars and the attached economy, other governments or philanthropy are unlikely to compensate for the disadvantage, and the recipient countries are too tight to the long that they can manage independently.
Even the biggest organizations are unlikely to be intact. There are more than 25 workers in the interviews, former USAID employees from help organizations described the system thrown into mass confusion and chaos.
The block tower can take hours, but “you pull out one of these blocks and it collapses,” said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of the prevention of HIV Avac, which relied on USAID by 38 percent of its financing.
“You have freed yourself from all staff, all of the institutional memories, all trust and trust, not only in the United States, but also in dozens of countries where USAID operates,” said Mr. Warren. “These things took decades to accumulate, but for two weeks to destroy.”
Small organizations, some with as many as 10 employees, folded. Some medium -sized organizations were up to 80 percent of their employees. Even major organizations – including Catholic Services of Relief and FHI 360, among the greatest recipients of USAID financing – announced large dismissal or Hairstyles.
IN One studyAbout 1 of 4 non -profit organizations said they could last a month; More than half said they had enough reserves to survive for a maximum of three months.
Damage agreed with the announcement of President Trump that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organizationforcing their leaders to announce their own cost reduction measures.
Global health experts said that the future suddenly looked uncertain, even dystopian and struggled to articulate alternatives.
“We are quite clear that the future looks different,” said Christine Stegling, Deputy Executive Director in Unaids, in the United Nations HIV department. But “None of us has a real picture of what that means.”
Damage extends not only to human health abroad, but also to Americans and US companies. Together with approximately 100,000 positions cut abroad, estimated 52,000 Americans In 42 countries lost their jobs.
Global Health Care Supply Market He was estimated at almost $ 3 billion in 2023 and was expected to grow. Each year, about two billion dollars American agricultural products They were purchased as aid in food. Stop Together at more than $ 450 million corn, lentils, rice and other goods in transit or in warehouses and Luke.
“The economic impact of this will be stunning to the lives and companies of people,” said Lisa Hilmi, Core Group CEO, a consortium of great global health doctors.
Mrs. Hilmi, who worked as a nurse in many conflict and disasters’ zones, said that the lack of health services could stimulate poor health, malnutrition, epidemic, civic unrest and “much wider fall of society around the world.”
“If America is the biggest superpower, then we have to act like that,” she said. “And part of this works with humanity.”
‘Dizzy chaos’
A week after help stopped, State Secretary Marco Rubio issued a giving up of rescue humanitarian aid and medication. But the stop commands for some programs including Food helpHe followed even after the renunciation announcement.
Last week, one big organization got progress for some of its programs. But later on the same day she set Trump’s administration Dozens of USAID officers On leave, leaving the organization, wondering if the division that has issued a renunciation is still a sustainable subject, and the official who wrote the notice is still employed.
“It’s another example of a dizzying chaos that has caused us this administration,” said a senior official in the organization.
The leaders of most organizations that depend on the financing of USAIDs would not speak in the record, fearing retaliation from Trump’s administration.
Even when the organizations received approval to continue, the money did not flow. One major organization received less than 5 percent of its expected budget for the period, but others received nothing.
“I obviously greet that the secretary approved the renunciation and put a post on the internet, but we cannot pay the bills with the post,” said a senior official of a large organization about Mr. Rubiou.
Some groups feel morally obliged to continue to provide rescue services, hoping that they will eventually be compensated. But with dozens of small organizations that have closed in the day, there is damage to some of the world’s most endured groups, some experts have warned.
The ecosystem of global health is so intertwined that Stanka has frozen the work of even organizations that do not receive money from the US government.
Non -profit IPA -and work with hundreds of organizations in dozens of countries to provide access to contraception, abortion and other services of reproductive health. Many clinics closed, some permanently, said Ana Kumar, president of the organization.
The speed of the disorder did not allow clinics to make plans for unforeseen situations or to narrow their financing addiction, she said, adding: “It definitely has a cracking effect.”
After a week of freezing, more than 900,000 women and girls will be denied reproductive care, the figure that will grow to 11.7 million During the 90-day break, according to the Guttmacher Institute. “It’s more than the whole population of North Carolina,” said Dr. Kumar.
As a result, the Institute estimated, 4.2 million girls and women will have unintentional pregnancy, and 8,340 will die of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
Many HIV programs have been focused on the “key population” with the highest risk, including transgender people and men who have sex with men, who are marginalized and even even even criminalized In some countries.
In Uganda, for example, where a sharp law against gay can carry a death sentence for consensual homosexual activity for people with HIV, non-profit groups financed by the United States were key sources of financial and medical support.
“It’s something that every American should be proud of, but I don’t think they know it,” said Kenneth Mwehonga, the Cinesta Executive Director for Promoting Health and Social Development, which supervises the quality of other HIV programs of Ugundi.
“I don’t think they know how much they contributed and the lives they saved, not celebrate it enough,” he said. His organization had to release 140 members of permanent staff and community workers.
Childhood immunization, prevention and treatment of malaria and malnutrition programs have been stopped. So are programs on education, economic strengthening, preventive health services and family planning.
“This is the perfect storm for bad health outcomes, they are not bypassed,” said Elisha Dunn-Georgiu, Executive Director of the Global Health Council, Health Group membership organizations.
Some organizations funded by USAID have provided clean water and sanitary protection, especially for the refugee population. Others have helped the governments to protect against diseases such as Polio and measles in conflict zones and among nomadic groups. Others have provided expertise in the outbreak of dangerous pathogens like Ebola and Marburg, which are smoldering in Uganda and Tanzania.
Any of these threats, if not contained, could easily cross the borders and land on the US coast, said Rebecca Wolfe, who has worked for 15 years in a non-profit Mercy Corps funded by USAID and is now an expert on development at the University of Chicago.
The world is “so connected to each other and try to divide it into ‘America First’, and the rest no longer works in today’s age,” she said.
‘Feels like sadness’
Some USAIDs employees have said that the sudden exclusion of financing is an antithetic to the goal: helping countries to become enough independent of taking care of their citizens.
In recent years, USAID has been working to train midwives, nurses, doctors, laboratories and hospitals to start carrying responsibility.
Self -sufficiency would require small non -profit organizations at the local level to provide services, but the least are likely to resolve the current storm at the same time.
“It is an irony that their priority in the 2025 project is localized and moved away from big partners,” said Jeremiah Centrella, a former main advisor at Mercy Corps. “But big international partners are the only ones with access to private donors and strong enough balances to pass it.”
It is unclear what will happen to tens of thousands of workers who suddenly have no job and an industry where they can find it.
In Kenya, Mercy Githinji took care of 100 households in Nairobi, Kayole, when she worked the clinic in which she worked and led the USAID Tumukia Mtoto project, abruptly closed. Now Mrs. Githinja, a 52-year-old single mother of four daughters, is not sure she will pay rent or school fees.
The clinic provided medical care, but also helped residents rent money, food and sanitary pads. “No check now, there’s nothing,” Mrs. Githinja said. “It’s very bad. People suffer. “
Even if the help continued next week, the clinics and offices had already closed, people moved and confidence was broken, some former USAID employees said.
Others said they were desperately sad – not for themselves, but because of the people they were obliged to serve.
“The only way I managed to describe it is, it feels like sadness,” said a former USAID employee.
“Our mission is to save lives and relieve suffering,” she said. “No opportunity to contribute to this and to take it away overnight, arbitrarily, without the previous announcement or reason, is called a criminal or radical lunatic, it is only deeply hearty.”
Stephanie Nolen contribute to reporting.
