We explore the harsh realities of how the Trump administration’s elimination of aid programs is unfolding on the ground, where money and hope are a scarce commodity.
Also in today’s edition: A top lawyer has some choice words for a Trump point person, and even USAID can’t keep up with what it’s getting rid of.
Not feeling very blessed
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After the Trump administration axed thousands of USAID awards, canceling a staggering 90% of the agency’s work, the termination letters began rolling in.
The wording didn’t exactly ease the pain.
Many had the same clinical introduction (“Dear Implementing Partner”) along with the same stinging sign-off: “Thank you for partnering with USAID and God Bless America.”
Blessings are probably what those partners — and the people they help — need more of at this point. Many of those partners actually received hard-fought waivers from USAID to continue their work, only to find themselves inexplicably receiving a termination notice to stop that work.
The emotional whiplash is one thing. The real-life impacts are quite another, as my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.
The nonprofit Alight, for example, supports half a dozen medical clinics in war-ravaged Sudan, where staff connect babies on the brink of starvation with the IVs, oxygen, and emergency feeding they need to survive.
“We have anywhere between 15 and 30 infants and children in these stabilization centers at a time, and if they do not have care, within about a four- to eight-hour period, they will die,” Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight, tells Elissa.
The devastation isn’t limited to Sudan. In Washington, D.C., Chemonics, one of USAID’s biggest partners, has seen nearly every one of its agency-funded programs shut down.
Now, major portions of USAID’s $9.5 billion Global Health Supply Chain Program — including the procurement and delivery of commodities related to malaria, and maternal, child, and reproductive health — have been canceled, according to a source familiar with the initiatives.
“The intent continues to be: asphyxiate the aid enterprise,” says a global health leader who spoke to Elissa on condition of anonymity. “All of the implementing infrastructure that’s there will die if we just — through a series of steps that are either malicious or incompetent — prevent it from ever getting money again.”
Read: ‘God Bless America’ and the death of 10,000 projects
ICYMI: Nearly 10,000 awards cut from USAID, State Department
+ Listen: For the latest episode of our podcast series, Elissa joins Devex’s Rumbi Chakamba and Sara Jerving to break down the latest staff and contract terminations at USAID.
Botched execution
Robert Nichols of Nichols Liu law firm warns that even if that money starts flowing again, the government could drag out the process so long that most organizations will go under by then.
Speaking at our most recent Devex Pro briefing, Nichols said that he doesn’t dispute the Trump administration’s right to cut spending — something many American voters want as well.
What he does have a problem with is the way it’s gone about it — and he singles out one person in particular for the “sloppiness” of the execution: Peter Marocco, the controversial Trump appointee who is spearheading USAID’s foreign aid review process.
Nichols said budget and staff cuts are going to happen across all U.S. government agencies, “but hopefully other agencies do this better, because the way that Mr. Marocco has done this in the foreign assistance space, I believe, is going to cost the government … $10 billion is my guess, [plus] tens of thousands of lawsuits and the sloppiness and the irresponsibility of it all,” Nichols said.
“If they had just taken a beat and done it right, it could have been done more efficiently,” he added. “And I think that's going to happen in other parts of the government. They’re going to learn their lessons, hopefully they’ll get better at it, but I believe this one individual, I wish he had taken the time to get good counseling on this, because the devastating effects on the industry are undeniable [and] the cost for the taxpayers of his wasteful actions are staggering.”
Read: Has ‘sloppiness’ left USAID partners to clean up the mess? (Pro)
+ Join us on Tuesday, March 4, for our next Devex Pro event — an exclusive conversation with U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, who will bring his perspective as a senior congressional voice on foreign affairs to examine the dismantling of USAID and the evolution of U.S. development policy. Save your spot today and submit your questions in advance.
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Can you remind us?
The termination letters came so swiftly that even USAID apparently couldn’t keep up, with the agency having to go back to partners to ask whether it cut their project.
“We understand there may be confusion regarding recent termination notices,” wrote Cara Christie, a deputy director of global policy, partnerships, programs, and communications at USAID. “We are working to ascertain the current status of assistance awards.”
The email was sent to organizations across the world, with several telling Elissa it came after they received termination letters just hours before.
For many partners, it was a confirmation of what they already knew: the USAID staff they’d been working with — in some cases, for years — had not been involved in the agency’s mass terminations.
“Not telling the staff what was terminated is perfectly on brand for this so-called review,” says one humanitarian official. “They aren’t paying their bills, they aren’t keeping their promises to preserve lifesaving aid, why should they bother to keep records or communicate to those few left to manage the programs?”
Scoop: USAID asks partners for information on recently cut awards
Cool reception
The question now on so many people’s minds is who can fill the vast financial chasm left by the United States? It’s a question philanthropies are being bombarded with, especially those working on an issue U.S. President Donald Trump wants nothing to do with: climate change.
Hopes were raised when billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced that Bloomberg Philanthropies — along with other unnamed funders — would cover the United States’ financial commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“It’s unfortunate that the U.S., which is the biggest emitter historically, and per capita, has pulled out” of the Paris Agreement, Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators on climate change, tells my colleague Ayenat Mersie. “We are hopeful that other institutions, both public and private philanthropy, will stand up.”
But so far there’s been more silence than standing. Many billionaire climate philanthropists — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Laurene Powell Jobs — have remained notably quiet since Trump took office, Ayenat writes.
Philanthropy, of course, cannot fill all the gaps left by the world’s largest donor. Still, climate philanthropy has been growing at an unprecedented pace. In 2023, foundation funding for climate philanthropy rose 20% from the previous year, hitting a record $4.8 billion.
This could also be an opportunity to rethink the broader climate finance landscape. “It’s time for the climate ecosystem to move beyond the reliance on U.S. hegemony in this space,” Wallis Grant of the public-private partnership Climate-KIC, writes in a Devex opinion piece. That means “creating more partnerships with the private sector and … moving towards collaborative philanthropic collectives.”
Read: As the US retreats from climate finance, can philanthropy fill the gap?
Opinion: As US aid cuts gut the climate ecosystem, here’s how we respond
+ For more insider brief on development finance, sign up for Devex Invested, our free, weekly newsletter on business, finance, and the SDGs.
Accountability check
More than two dozen philanthropic foundations did pledge to prioritize local leadership, mirroring pledges USAID made under former Administrator Samantha Power. Today, Power, and the agency she once led, are gone, but what remains of the foundations’ localization promises?
They haven’t given up on it, although they could be a little more transparent about it, according to Publish What You Fund, which said only one of those foundations has published data on their progress.
“We need a little bit more humility, and more people to come forward and say: this might not be perfect, but this is how we figured it out,” says Gary Forster, the chief executive officer of PWYF.
But for Natalie Ross of the Council on Foundations, the lack of transparency doesn’t necessarily mean foundations are failing to localize funding.
“What I don’t see from the foundations who made commitments is a desire to be untransparent,” says Ross. “I think it’s a realization that it’s a complicated question of how to be more locally led, and it’s not so simple to answer with a single data point.”
Read: Have foundations met their local funding commitments? (Pro)
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Parting words
Today is the last day on the job for Agnes Kalibata, who for the last decade has led AGRA, the Nairobi-based organization that is hugely influential in setting African agricultural policy.
AGRA has grown significantly under Kalibata’s leadership, tripling its staff to 300 with offices in 15 countries from two when she first began, writes Devex Senior Editor Tania Karas. Its tiny annual budget has ballooned to nearly $1 billion today, with donors such as the Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa when it was founded in 2006, under Kalibata, AGRA rebranded in 2022 to just its acronym to de-emphasize the Green Revolution, which is credited with improving agricultural yields but often at great expense. Kalibata said this reflects a shift toward a food systems approach that aims to increase farmer productivity and market access while emphasizing environmental sustainability.
“The Green Revolution ship has sailed,” Kalibata says in an exit interview, in which she reflected on her dreams of a hunger-free Africa that can feed itself.
Read: Beyond the Green Revolution — how AGRA evolved under Agnes Kalibata
In other news
Nearly 350 of the largest U.S. foundations, controlling $900 billion and 55% of all grants, face federal scrutiny over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs under Trump’s directive. [The Chronicle of Philanthropy]
Escalating gang violence in Haiti has displaced over a million people, prompting the U.N. to seek $900 million in aid this year for food, medicine, protection, health care, and support services. [UN News]
Israel and Hamas began talks in Cairo yesterday over the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, preempting a collapse ahead of Saturday’s deadline. [France 24]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
