It’s been exciting to be out in the field again this year, but I wish it were for a different reason. I didn’t expect to be trying to document, in a small way, what’s happening in the aftermath of the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In Ethiopia, I met with farmers, researchers, and NGOs, and later this year after COP30, I’ll be in Central and South America. What I’m seeing and hearing—and what I expect to hear more of—is sobering. On the ground, it already feels like the early stages of a nightmare: the dismantling of USAID has left an enormous void.
For nearly six decades, USAID powered essential services around the globe: agricultural development, education, emergency food aid, vaccine distribution, malaria prevention, family planning, HIV/AIDS initiatives, and so much more. While its budget typically represented less than 1 percent of federal spending in the United States, its reach and influence were immense. Entire communities were transformed by the stability and trust the agency created. With its abrupt dismantling, that trust—and much of that stability—has simply evaporated.
In Ethiopia, one NGO leader told me, “The impact was immediate and disastrous.” Their organization was forced to lay off nearly two dozen staff, cancel two major projects focused on women’s nutrition and healthy behaviors, and lost about US$1 million in funding—all without warning. “It’s a huge loss,” they said, not only for their organization, but for the women, girls, and smallholder farmers who work with them. With no transition time, they couldn’t prepare their staff, or the communities they served, for what was coming.
These are not isolated stories. Around the world, organizations are confronting the same reality. In 2023 alone, USAID oversaw nearly $6.2 billion in global health funding—covering HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, and nutrition. Research published in the Lancet warns that the sudden halt could lead to millions of preventable deaths in the next five years.
Some may argue “without warning” is inaccurate because Stop Work Orders were issued before the cancellations. Those arguments are wrong, however. Each order indicated the contractually required individual review would follow. The subsequent terminations claimed to have been at the conclusion of said reviews, but many are skeptical as to whether they were ever conducted. USAID had a significantly reduced workforce already, meaning it would have been difficult to conduct these reviews, and if they did occur, they were without the expected participation of the implementing partners.
Critics have long debated whether USAID created inefficiencies or dependency. Or that it was rooted in colonial attitudes. Some of that is true. Virtually any government agency in the world could be rightly criticized, and some of USAID’s shortcomings were notoriously tenacious. The reality, however, is that every day, USAID saved lives, supported democracy, and strengthened food and agriculture systems and health systems around the world, all while garnering goodwill for the U.S. and making the world a safer place for all. It had been championed for years by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who once praised it for promoting humanitarian relief and preventing disease. That support makes its dismantling even more bewildering—and it makes me, personally, very angry.
What keeps me up at night isn’t just the programs that have ended or the lives that have been and will be lost, but the trust that’s been broken. That trust—built slowly, through decades of partnership and collaboration—won’t be easy to restore, no matter who sits in the White House.
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Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa
