2024 US foreign affairs funding bill a 'slow-motion gut punch'

The long-delayed 2024 United States budget, which includes a nearly 6% cut for foreign affairs funding, has been released, but the clock is ticking for lawmakers to pass the bill before a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday. Several development advocates acknowledged the constrained funding environment but noted the foreign affairs budget took disproportionately large cuts compared to other agencies and programs in the funding package. The message, some said, is that the foreign affairs budget is not a priority. “Given what’s going on in the world and the number of global crises it’s a significant failure to meet the moment,” said Liz Leibowitz, ONE's senior director of government relations. “It does seem like a pretty stark cut compared to where the other bills came in.” Some were grateful the cuts weren’t even larger, a real possibility, especially if the compromise agreement hadn’t been struck between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate to get the bill to the floor. The House bill proposed cuts of 12% and House Republicans floated an array of proposals suggesting even deeper reductions to various foreign aid programs back in September. “It’s definitely not as bad as it could have been,” said Keifer Buckingham, advocacy director at Open Society Foundations. “I think people are looking at this bill and saying, okay, take a little sigh of relief, but we have a lot of work to do for 2025.” While the outcome wasn’t entirely unexpected, it’s still a blow. “Waiting for this bill has been like waiting for a slow-motion gut punch. We knew it was coming and so you're expecting the pain of the top-line cut but it still knocks the wind out of you,” said David Cronin, a government affairs specialist at Catholic Relief Services. The wait isn’t quite over. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill Friday, leaving little time for the Senate to approve it before a partial government shutdown at midnight. If there is a shutdown, it isn’t expected to last too long and should have a limited impact. The cuts in the bill were not meted out proportionately, so there are winners and losers. Humanitarian funding in USAID’s international disaster assistance account is up more than $800 million. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was funded at the same levels as 2023 and notably got a one-year reauthorization in the bill. But the key development assistance accounts had steep reductions — down about 10% from last year —, as did global health security, which is off about $200 million. It appears increases to humanitarian and refugee support — up nearly $2 billion combined — have come at the expense of the development accounts. While details will emerge over time, it may mean losses to programs that address water, sanitation, education, democracy, and more. “We cannot humanitarian assistance our way out of the many challenges we face around the world,” Cronin said. “Short changing long-term development and economic accounts may help us in the short term address humanitarian challenges, but it will make addressing some of these poverty issues much more difficult as we look ahead.” While it’s critically important to address humanitarian crises, there must be a balance with the core development, economic, and health investments in order to avoid getting “stuck in a cycle of crisis,” Leibowitz said. “You started to see this trend and this concern we’ve worried about for a long time that we’re going to rob the development programs to pay for humanitarian programs,” said Justin Fugle, head of policy at Plan International USA, one that he’s been watching. That’s not acceptable, he said. Lawmakers should find another way to support mounting humanitarian needs, he said, adding that even with this bill a supplemental funding bill including significant humanitarian aid is critical. Others echoed his remarks that without the emergency funding package, there will be insufficient money to feed hungry people or provide them with other critical, often life-saving resources. “In the face of this deal, now it is even more imperative that Congress acts immediately to approve the national security emergency supplemental with critical economic and humanitarian assistance resources, and to ensure the FY25 budget provides the resources needed,” Liz Schrayer, president and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, said in a statement. The details Some of the biggest cuts are to the key programs — USAID’s development assistance account and the Economic Support Fund, which provides critical economic support and funding for a wide range of development and foreign policy priorities. Feed the Future may also see cuts, and with money for Food for Peace reduced in the agriculture funding bill, the situation could be tight for food security-focused programs. Some funding to the United Nations has been trimmed, and notably, UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency, gets no money at all. Lawmakers included a prohibition against funding the agency through March of next year. The bill also allocates $50 million less than last year to the World Bank’s International Development Association, its fund for the lowest-income countries, ahead of its replenishment later this year. “That’s not great in terms of tone setting,” Buckingham said. The picture was better for another organization going into a replenishment cycle. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, sees a roughly $10 million increase this year. In general, PEPFAR and many global health programs saw either flat funding or in some cases small increases. Though global health security was cut by about $200 million from last year’s funding levels. There are also some wins for proposals that didn’t make it into the final bill, advocates said. House Republicans had wanted to do away with the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, but it gets $200 million in the bill, though it comes with some new reporting rules, Fugle said. “It just sort of treats a lot of the gender programs with suspicion and we think that's really uncalled for. These are good, solid, effective programs,” he said. What’s next The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote on the group of budget bills, including the foreign affairs bill on Friday morning, which wouldn’t leave much time for the Senate to approve the deal. If anything in the process is delayed, it could mean a partial government shutdown, though most observers believe it wouldn’t last more than a day or two. While any shutdown is disruptive, short ones, especially over the weekend, should have limited impact, development experts told Devex. Discussions are already underway about the 2025 funding bill, and a supplemental funding bill for Ukraine and Israel that includes substantial global humanitarian funding is also still on the table. The Senate passed a version of the supplemental weeks ago, but due to internal Republican politics, it hasn’t made it to a vote in the House of Representatives. Various proposals are being considered, and exactly where things will end up and how much of the humanitarian aid will be in the final deal, is still up in the air. It’s important to note that with such a delayed budget approval — it’s already about halfway through the fiscal year — there will be a truncated timeline for agencies to consult with Congress and get the money out the door. While agencies have prepared as well as they could without the final budget numbers, the rushed nature of this process could lead to less effective use of aid dollars, Fugle said.