Aid freeze, waiver, termination, reversal: Stop TB awaits clarity from US

Days after the U.S. Agency for International Development gutted its funding, the Stop TB Partnership was told the termination of its USAID funding is rescinded and that it can continue doing its work. But there remain unanswered questions. “We assume it’s for the lifesaving work for which we had a waiver, but we don't know. And we asked questions, but none of our questions were answered,” Dr. Lucica Ditiu, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, told Devex. The partnership was among the thousands of organizations that received a suspension order in January when the Trump administration decided to freeze U.S. foreign aid and ordered those receiving U.S. funding to stop work. That led to a pause in the partnership’s grant funding for civil society organizations, but operations continued for the Global Drug Facility, which facilitates access to tuberculosis drugs and diagnostics, given its function as a lifesaving program. On Feb. 27, however, it was one of the thousands of organizations that received termination letters, which meant losing millions of dollars. This led the partnership to send out termination letters to its 140 grant recipients and to plan for downsizing its secretariat. While the partnership was told it can now resume work, Ditiu said they still don’t have access to funding. “A clearer signal will be if the pipeline will be open and we are able to draw down money, even for the work of January or February, or whatever was under the waiver in February. That we don’t have yet,” she said. Given the uncertainties, Ditiu said the partnership has not yet informed its grantees, and it is still going ahead with the downsizing plans. “In my view, we go ahead and prepare, but then we have to see how these things go,” she said. Other organizations appear to be receiving the same rescinded termination letters. But some have already been informed that the reversal was a mistake while others received termination notices even though they did not have active grants with USAID.