Presented by The Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs
The U.S. foreign aid cuts have triggered a worldwide reckoning. Where do we even begin to process it? You can start here.
Also in today’s edition: Does an “America First” global health strategy put the world last?
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The foreign assistance cuts handed down this year by U.S. President Donald Trump are not just an abstract policy debate in the Washington, D.C., bubble. Their repercussions reach nearly every corner of the globe, touching — and often irrevocably altering — the lives of millions.
Reporting on the cuts from media outlets has been both powerful and scattershot, especially once the shock of USAID’s disintegration wore off and the surge of interest waned.
But here at Devex, we know the cuts will fundamentally reshape global development for years, possibly even decades to come. They also carry significant implications for U.S. foreign policy — altering how America projects influence, manages partnerships, and pursues its interests abroad. We’ve launched The Aid Report to serve as the definitive resource on this transformation — from aggregated media articles to verified accounts of disruption, such as halted health services and shuttered education programs.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim to Congress that no one has died because of the aid cuts left an indelible mark on the aid community. We’ll unpack the rebuttals in this living, public record of real-world impacts. From Nicholas Kristof’s visceral reporting on death at the front lines of aid-deprived countries, to our own reporting on livelihoods upended in the blink of an eye, we offer a comprehensive picture of what’s happening to people on the ground.
People such as Tefuro Ezua, a 56-year-old farmer in Uganda who took a chance on moringa — dubbed the “miracle tree” for its nutrition-rich hardiness — thanks to a USAID-backed program that gave him the financial means to send his three children to school and cover farm costs without loading up on debt.
Then the program vanished, alongside USAID.
George Aworet, who was employed by RTI International as a private sector engagement adviser on the project, describes the setback as more than financial.
Moringa production was aimed at supporting farmers while reducing deforestation in Budongo Forest, one of Uganda’s most treasured ecological reserves. “Our target of achievement … was cut short,” he says. “As a development partner and implementer, we see the project as going to waste.”
As for Ezua, a wariness has taken root, writes Devex contributing reporter Nakisanze Segawa. “I don’t think I will ever go back to moringa farming,” he says, “and I am skeptical about aid influencing me to grow any crop.”
Ezua’s story reflects how U.S. aid decisions reverberate across global development systems, influencing livelihoods, local economies, and the perception of American partnership abroad.
Look out for more reporting from The Aid Report examining what local experiences reveal about the broader policy consequences of U.S. aid cuts.
Read: US aid cuts uproot Uganda’s emerging 'miracle tree' market
+ To learn more about The Aid Report, visit www.theaidreport.us. This project is funded by the Gates Foundation and is an editorially independent initiative by Devex. If your organization has data or examples of how programs and people are being affected, whether positively or negatively, please email editor Kelli Rogers at kelli.rogers@devex.com. You can also reach Kelli securely on Signal or fill out this short survey.
The life-or-death consequences of the U.S. aid cuts are perhaps most obvious when it comes to global health.
After the aid cuts came a rush of stories of clinics shutting down overnight, patients rationing medicines, nurses working for free, and reports of death.
For months, confusion reigned over whether America had abdicated its leadership role in global health. But recently, the U.S. State Department released its long-awaited “America First” global health strategy to flesh out Trump’s vision.
Specifically, it lays out several objectives, including:
• Forging direct agreements with countries
• Increasing collaborations with the private sector and faith-based organizations
• Discarding relationships with traditional nongovernmental organizations
• Promoting American products and countering Chinese influence
Some see the future of U.S. health leadership as a dark one; others see silver linings.
The focus on relationships with governments was welcomed by many who saw the current architecture as rickety because of parallel, fragmented foreign aid systems, my colleague Sara Jerving writes.
In fact, for the first time in decades, Washington and African capitals are articulating the same end goal of sustainability and self-reliance, says Dr. Jirair Ratevosian of the Duke Global Health Institute, adding that the strategy “is a response to the exhaustion of the traditional aid paradigm.”
“That alignment should not be underestimated; it reflects a historic convergence between donor reform agendas and Africa’s long-standing pursuit of sovereignty. The challenge now is ensuring that the means of getting there do not fracture the shared destination,” he says.
At the same time, the dangers of blowing up the system are very real — and life-threatening.
“The next decade could be marked by more preventable pandemics, rising health inequalities, and a world where the U.S. no longer sets the standard for science,” Ratevosian warns.
Read: ‘America First’ in global health — oxymoron or opportunity?
Related: How will America’s new global health strategy change PEPFAR?
Watch: The promise and pitfalls of an 'America First' global health strategy (Pro)
+ ICYMI, we launched a new series on The Future of Global Health, which digs into the ripple effects of foreign aid cuts and the search for a new path forward. Check out the series.
“You cannot fight an invisible problem, and there is a determined effort to make the damage visible.”
— Atul Gawande, former head of global health, USAIDGawande was speaking at an investigative film festival in D.C., following the premiere of “Rovina’s Choice,” a documentary he executive-produced about a woman in the Kakuma refugee camp near the border of South Sudan and Kenya who tries to save her daughter’s life.
By juxtaposing claims from the Trump administration with scenes from Kakuma, the documentary exposes the gap between rhetoric and reality, my colleague Catherine Cheney writes.
Gawande criticized the notion that aid cuts have not had much of an effect: “The continued claim of the [Trump] administration is that there’s no harm done, and that aid is getting to people where it’s necessary, and it’s absolutely not true.”
Read: ‘You cannot fight an invisible problem’ — Atul Gawande on US aid cuts
Related: Oxfam head says ‘cruel’ US cuts were ‘without warning and without reason’ (Pro)
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The loss of a job in no way compares to the loss of a life, but it still entails trauma, eroding one’s identity and purpose.
Long a hub for development jobs, the Washington metropolitan area of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia took a massive blow with the dissolution of USAID and the ongoing ripple effects for a hollowed-out aid industry.
Fueled by 300,000 federal job cuts, the DMV region has seen unemployment rise at a significantly higher pace than the rest of the U.S., and D.C.’s unemployment rate, currently around 6%, has been the highest in the nation for several months.
Behind the gloomy stats are painful stories. Take Samantha Hicks, who made D.C. her home after spending eight years working her way up to a leadership recruiting position at Abt Global. Her team was furloughed less than two weeks after Trump signed an executive order freezing U.S. foreign aid. Or Laura Wigglesworth, who is dealing with the personal and professional loss of a sector she spent decades devoted to. She began the year as a senior talent acquisition consultant at PATH and had worked 25 years in the sector before being among the nearly 20,500 people estimated to have lost jobs as a result of the USAID cuts.
But the loss cut far deeper than a terminated contract. “I’m realizing that I’ve not just lost my job, I’ve lost my industry,” she says.
Read: Is this the end for Washington as a jobs hub? (Career)
Canada plans to scale back foreign aid to pre-pandemic levels, with about 2.7 billion Canadian dollars in cuts over four years, the government announced Tuesday. [The Canadian Press]
The risk of cardiovascular diseases increases for people living in conflict zones due to chronic stress and disrupted access to health care, driving up incidences of stroke and heart disease. [The Telegraph]
During his Brazil visit, Prince William spoke out against the criminal deforestation in the Amazon, launched a wildlife ranger fund at the United for Wildlife summit, and highlighted global environmental protection efforts ahead of the Earthshot Prize and COP30. [BBC]
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