Devex Dish: US aid cuts spell bleak outlook for zoonotic disease control

The U.S. foreign aid cuts mean the world is far less prepared to detect and prevent animal diseases that affect livestock — such as bird flu and its highly pathogenic subtype, H5N1.

These viruses know no borders, points out Bernard Bett, principal scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, which specializes in zoonotic diseases — those that transmit between animals and humans. Outbreaks can spread quickly and have the potential to affect food security, livelihoods, public health, and trade. Some of Bett’s own work on livestock vaccines and emergency response to animal diseases has been stopped as a result of funding cuts from the now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development, which supported ILRI’s work. USAID also funded a variety of global efforts under the banner of “One Health,” an approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health.

On the African continent, some countries — such as Ethiopia, given its huge livestock industry — may be more equipped than others to invest in their own national animal disease detection, prevention, and response efforts. But any individual country is only as safe as the weakest link. “People should see this as a highly risky scenario we are in, and somebody needs really to put in some efforts into bridging that gap which has occurred because of suspension of aid,” Bett tells me.

The Trump administration’s handling of a current domestic outbreak of H5N1 does not bode well for what could happen if the virus spreads and mutates. The outbreak has affected U.S. dairy cows and more than 170 million birds since 2022. H5N1 has now been detected in poultry in all 50 U.S. states, infecting scores of people and causing at least one confirmed death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For now, there’s no person-to-person transmission, and the current public health risk is low.

“While the current North American outbreak is largely mild, historic mortality rates of 50% from H5N1 in humans suggest the terrible consequences of underreacting to current threats,” a group of human and animal virologists with the Global Virus Network warned recently. “More should be done to mitigate [the] spread of ‘bird flu’ to humans.”

Preventing the spread requires investment in biosecurity, surveillance, veterinary capacity, global coordination, and vaccinations. But the Trump administration is doing just the opposite.

Back in February, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a $1 billion plan to help stop bird flu, including $100 million for vaccine research. Barely a week later, that vaccine plan was “off the table.” And in May, the Trump administration canceled a $766 million contract with vaccine company Moderna to develop a messenger RNA vaccine to protect people against flu strains including H5N1. It has also sought to curb communications by domestic and international scientific bodies, including the CDC and the World Health Organization.

When it comes to international coordination — particularly among lower-income countries — among the most worrying signals is how U.S. aid cuts are playing out within the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The agency helps countries coordinate and boost their capacity to reduce the national, regional, and global spread of animal diseases. The U.S. is the largest contributor to FAO’s budget, comprising 14% of total resources in 2024. But earlier this year, FAO received termination notices for more than 100 U.S.-funded programs valued at approximately $382 million. FAO’s global health security program — which monitors and prevents the spread of transboundary animal diseases such as bird flu, New World screwworm, and African swine fever in 49 countries — has reduced much of its work. The U.S. provided 90% of its funding. (FAO still has 34 Pandemic Fund projects focused on strengthening animal health systems for pandemic preparedness, prevention, and response.) 

In a special briefing last month, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said the agency would launch a new mechanism to prevent and prepare for future pandemics caused by cross-border animal diseases by the end of the year. As less funding leads to fragmented global coordination and inconsistent surveillance, it can’t begin work soon enough.

From the archives: Bird flu outbreak highlights potential risks to global food security

ICYMI: UN food agency caught in Trump administration’s crosshairs

Back to basics

The good news from the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, or FfD4, in Sevilla, Spain, is that multilateralism isn’t dead — though it’s taken a serious beating. Official development assistance is expected to drop 17% this year alone. It comes alongside an unprecedented debt crisis in which 3.4 billion people are now living in countries that spend more money servicing their debt than they do on education and health.

“But after four days of negotiations, conversations, and handshakes, the 15,000 attendees of last week’s FfD4 seemed to depart with a bit more hope than when they had arrived — and a sense that the sector hadn’t given up just yet,” my colleague Elissa Miolene writes in a takeaway piece.

With less than five years to reach the deadline of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, the world is short $4 trillion in annual financing from meeting them. The FfD4 outcome document, the Compromiso de Sevilla, maps out a plan to get there. And the Sevilla Platform for Action, which consists of more than 100 initiatives launched during the conference, aims to operationalize that plan.

Many of the most high-profile solutions centered around debt — such as a borrower’s club to help indebted countries confront the issue; Italy’s launch of a €230 million debt-for-development swap program for African countries; the launch of a Debt Swaps for Development Hub by Spain and the World Bank; and the launch of a Debt Pause Clause Alliance by Canada, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and five multilateral development banks.  

As for how food systems fit into FfD4, Gabriel Ferrero, Spain’s ambassador-at-large for global food security, pointed to how recent food crises — consequences of global disruptions linked to the  COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine — have depleted financial resources and helped bring countries into debt distress. That’s where key issues highlighted in the outcome document come in.

“This Financing for Development Conference here in Seville should be a big opportunity also to bring attention, in this challenging global context, to the basics,” he said. “And the basics is fighting against hunger, malnutrition, food insecurity, and what it causes.”

Read: Key takeaways from four days in Sevilla 

And don’t miss: Why food security is central to international financial reforms

+ Devex Pro members can read our interview with Shari Spiegel, the person who helped shape the Sevilla Platform for Action. Not yet a Devex Pro member? Start your 15-day free trial today to access all our expert analyses, insider insights, funding data, events, and more.

Can’t beat the feeling … if you can afford it

Your Diet Coke habit might get a lot more expensive if WHO has its way. Last week, the agency launched a new initiative calling for countries to raise prices on sugary drinks, alcohol, and tobacco by at least 50% by 2035 by introducing health taxes. The goal is to curb consumption of these products, as they contribute to noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

NCDs killed at least 43 million people globally in 2021, 73% of whom live in low- and middle-income countries. WHO and partners estimate that the price hikes could raise $1 trillion over the next 10 years and would help countries raise revenue while curbing NCD cases and deaths, Devex Senior Reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo writes.

There’s “a sense that we’re losing both on the health side and achieving [universal health coverage] … but we’re also failing to raise money for development because of the cuts to aid. This kind of solves both,” Pete Baker, deputy director of the global health policy program at the Center for Global Development, tells Jenny.

Of course, industry pushback is to be expected. WHO emphasizes it is not a call for a ban but a strategy for countries to make these products less affordable — particularly for young people — in order to reduce consumption.

Read: WHO pushes for 50% price hike on tobacco, alcohol, and sugary drinks

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In memoriam

Groot, a pioneering Dutch agronomist, passed away Sunday at age 90 in his hometown of Enkhuizen, where he was also born. Groot dedicated his life to bringing high-quality hybrid seeds to smallholder farmers and training them on improved cultivation techniques, particularly in Southeast Asia and later in Latin America and Africa. His work enabled millions of farmers to gain greater incomes through enhanced vegetable production, earning him the 2019 World Food Prize, which is often described as the Nobel Prize of food and agriculture.

“Simon was a bundle of great energy and spirit and a positive force in the role of private for-profits in the global agricultural development enterprise in lifting the poor out of poverty and enhancing nutrition in vulnerable communities,” says Gebisa Ejeta, chair of the World Food Prize laureate selection committee and himself a 2009 prize laureate.

Read: Seed pioneer Simon Groot leaves legacy of farmer-focused innovation

From our archives: Serve the farmer first, says 2019 World Food Prize winner

Chew on this

Two New Zealand scientists have found a way to reduce environmentally harmful methane emissions from cow manure. [Bloomberg]

Who will be the next U.N. secretary-general? The race is a year away, but a new crop of U.N. leaders is campaigning for a series of top jobs that will reshape the world body. [Devex]

From “aid trap” to “brutal” aid cuts: African leaders confront a new reality that might force them to break free from aid dependency [Devex Pro]