{"id":12785,"date":"2025-02-05T11:38:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T11:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/how-the-us-foreign-aid-freeze-is-intensifying-humanitarian-crises-across-the-globe\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T11:38:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T11:38:05","slug":"how-the-us-foreign-aid-freeze-is-intensifying-humanitarian-crises-across-the-globe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/how-the-us-foreign-aid-freeze-is-intensifying-humanitarian-crises-across-the-globe\/","title":{"rendered":"How the US foreign aid freeze is intensifying humanitarian crises across the globe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Food distribution is being stopped. Health services are being shut down. Lifesaving aid is being tied up, with no way to disburse it. <\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t warnings of what\u2019s to come, but examples of what aid workers say is the fallout of the Trump administration\u2019s freeze on foreign aid and the gutting of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking for our beneficiaries, for whom this is life and death,\u201d a USAID worker said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have programs in Ukraine, we have programs in Burma, in Sudan, in some of the most complicated, dangerous places in the world, where there are just massive humanitarian needs,\u201d the USAID employee said. \u201cAll of that is stopped. All of that is paused.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do work that we think is really important for America\u2019s power and stability abroad. We don\u2019t do this work because it\u2019s nice. We do it because it buys us much more, and it gives us much more than we are giving,\u201d the USAID employee added. \u201cIt\u2019s devastating to see this on a personal level, and I just think it\u2019s so foolhardy on a global level.\u201d <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans and people abroad are losing their jobs, as the entire aid industry reels from unpaid contracts. <\/p>\n

These are a small selection of countries and programs severely affected by the aid freeze. <\/p>\n

Without safe water, \u2018people die, people are displaced\u2019<\/h2>\n

USAID supports hundreds of projects focused on water security, in Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, and dozens of other nations. An estimated 4 billion people globally don\u2019t have access to safe drinking water. <\/p>\n

Without those programs, \u201canimals die, people die, people are displaced,\u201d said Evan Thomas, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder. <\/p>\n

He works on a project in Kenya that helps more than 1 million people access clean water, via 200 deep groundwater pumps installed and partially funded by USAID. Now, the program is unable to pay contracts with people hired to help maintain and repair the pumps. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat entire program is now at risk of falling apart,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people don\u2019t have water, when their livestock die, they become very stressed, and there are militias that are willing to take advantage of that stress and recruit for their own aims,\u201d said Thomas, citing concerns about the rising influence of terror group Al-Shabaab in Kenya. \u201cUndermining the access of people around the world to food and water and medicine is not going to make America more secure.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t just sit around and die of thirst. They move. They migrate. And so this will create increased migration pressure everywhere in the world,\u201d Thomas added. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Kenya, other USAID-funded projects help improve care for HIV\/AIDS patients are also being disrupted. <\/p>\n

\u2018Feeding programs in Sudan are being shut down\u2019<\/h2>\n

In Sudan, food kitchens funded by US aid are already shutting down, according to Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official. <\/p>\n

It comes as the UN reports millions of families, many displaced, are experiencing crisis levels of hunger amid the country\u2019s ongoing conflict. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of displaced people and a lot of people who are caught in famine and other crises could be harmed, if not gravely harmed, if not killed by this pullback of aid,\u201d said Konyndyk, warning of the wide-reaching impact on refugees in Sudan, Syria and Gaza. <\/p>\n

The US system for monitoring global famine, FEWSNET, which is used throughout the world, has also been shut down amid the Trump administration\u2019s aid freeze. <\/p>\n

\u201cUSAID has been a cornerstone of lifesaving initiatives in famine-stricken regions such as Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, but the funding freeze leaves millions without access to essential services like health care, clean water, and shelter,\u201d according to the executive director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, Jamie Munn. <\/p>\n

Malaria cases will be \u2018increasingly common occurrence\u2019 in US without overseas projects<\/h2>\n

USAID spearheads a program to control and eliminate malaria in 24 of the hardest-hit African nations, including Mali, where malaria is the leading cause of mortality. <\/p>\n

The aid agency funds and delivers antimalarial medications, test-kits and insecticide-treated bug nets, which save lives and help reduce the number of mosquitos. <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n
A mother and baby sit in a bed protected against malaria using a net in October 2009.<\/span> <\/div>
Wendy Stone\/Corbis\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Malaria still kills about 600,000 people each year worldwide \u2013 most of them children under the age of five. But in the countries where the USAID-run President\u2019s Malaria Initiative operates, the mortality rate has been cut in half since George W. Bush launched it in 2006. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons that we don\u2019t have malaria in the US is because we fund and track malaria worldwide, for global health security,\u201d the contractor said. \u201cSo, the cases that everyone saw in Florida this past year would become an increasingly common occurrence if we\u2019re not funding driving down the parasite elsewhere.\u201d <\/p>\n

Afghanistan \u2018faces severe repercussions\u2019 for vulnerable women<\/h2>\n

Afghanistan \u201cfaces severe repercussions as the funding pause disrupts education programmes, healthcare delivery, and women\u2019s empowerment initiatives, undermining long-term recovery and stability,\u201d the International Council of Voluntary Agencies said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, more than 6 million people in the country are surviving on \u201cjust bread and tea,\u201d World Food Program (WFP) Country Director for Afghanistan Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters. <\/p>\n

She is concerned about the aid freeze given that the WFP is already running on half the funding it needs in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n

The WFP received 54% of its funding last year from the US, according to the UN. <\/p>\n

Funding disrupted for Ukrainian schools and heating systems<\/h2>\n

USAID funds backup heating systems to schools and hospitals in 14 regions of Ukraine, which are invaluable amid Russia\u2019s continued attacks on the country\u2019s energy infrastructure, according to the USAID Ukraine account on \u2018X.\u2019 That account has since been taken offline. <\/p>\n

USAID also assists with equipment delivery to energy workers, for example in the southern city of Odesa, which was recently hit in one of Russia\u2019s assaults on Ukraine\u2019s energy supplies. <\/p>\n

Funding for these programs, as well as others focused on food security and veterans\u2019 rehabilitation has been frozen, according to nonprofits in the country. <\/p>\n

Lawmakers in the Ukrainian parliament have made a plea for continued USAID assistance, which also funds programs that enable thousands of children to continue their education and support children impacted psychologically by the war. <\/p>\n

USAID funding further supports Ukrainian media outlets, in an effort to keep them going amid economic hardship and counter Russian media and propaganda. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe grants have become a pillar of support for many domestic media outlets, as the advertising market, which helped the media survive, has not yet revived after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation,\u201d the Ukrainian Parliament\u2019s Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy said last week. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u2018going to destabilize the Venezuelan and Colombian border\u2019<\/h2>\n

In Colombia, USAID funds and operates programs related to counter-narcotics, emergency food assistance, combatting deforestation and more. <\/p>\n

Donors and organizations working on the ground have expressed huge concerns about the sudden drop off in aid, especially as the country faces an escalation in violence and a humanitarian crisis in the Catatumbo region, a strategic territory for drug production. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried to explain that (the aid freeze) is both going to destabilize the Venezuelan and Colombian border, but also destabilize the internal conflict, and that is one of the largest coca-growing areas in the country,\u201d said one aid worker, highlighting concerns about an uptick in drug trafficking as well as local people suffering. <\/p>\n

Non-governmental aid workers in the Latin America region have compiled a list of current USAID projects they say are designed to counter immigration and combat the influence of cartels, with that work now halted in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. <\/p>\n

US funds 47% of global humanitarian aid<\/h2>\n

The impacts are far wider than a handful of countries, of course, with international nonprofits warning about consequences on every continent. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the entire humanitarian system could collapse because we fund about 40% of it,\u201d the USAID official added. According to UN officials, the US funds around 47% of global humanitarian aid. <\/p>\n

The country is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally, although it accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget. <\/p>\n

Speaking to the press in El Salvador on Monday, Rubio said the \u201cfunctions of USAID\u201d must align with US foreign policy and that it is \u201ca completely unresponsive agency.\u201d <\/p>\n

When asked about the arguments that USAID\u2019s work is vital to national security and promoting US interests, Rubio said, \u201cThere are things that USAID, that we do through USAID, that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since it was established by Congress in 1961, USAID \u201chas brought lifesaving medicines, food, clean water, assistance for farmers, kept women and girls safe, promoted peace, and so much more over decades, all for less than one percent of our federal budget,\u201d Oxfam America President Abby Maxman said in a statement. \u201cEnding USAID as we know it would undo hard-earned gains in the fight against poverty and humanitarian crisis, and cause long-term, irreparable harm.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food distribution is being stopped. Health services are being shut down. Lifesaving aid is being tied up, with no way to disburse it. These aren\u2019t warnings of what\u2019s to come, but examples of what aid workers say is the fallout of the Trump administration\u2019s freeze on foreign aid and the gutting of the United States <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}