Presented by Operation Smile
After layoffs, leadership changes, shuttered programs, and the withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the U.S. CDC’s ability to effectively execute its global health work is increasingly uncertain.
Also in today’s edition: Science comes up with a new, blight-resistant potato.
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CDC you on the other side
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is coming off a bruising year. Chaotic layoffs, leadership upheaval, and a flood of misinformation under Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a vaccine skeptic — have left a once-steady agency shaken, with staff questioning its future role in global health.
Much of the Trump administration’s global health impact followed the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, but the U.S. CDC has not been immune, writes Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving. A shift toward direct bilateral agreements signed by the State Department also leaves questions about where CDC fits, raising concerns it may be treated as a technical add-on rather than a partner in shaping science-driven programs on the ground.
Dr. Tom Frieden, chief executive officer of the global health organization Resolve to Save Lives and U.S. CDC director from 2009 to 2017, says the future of U.S. CDC’s global health work is “very much in the balance.” For many current and former staff members, that uncertainty is unsettling given how central the agency has been to global disease control and improving health outcomes for decades.
Over time, U.S. CDC built deep expertise — from HIV treatment under PEPFAR to building up lab systems, epidemiology training, and outbreak response. “CDC is a powerhouse in terms of the capacity to support effective programs globally,” Frieden says. “They have expertise — not just about the technical issues — but deep knowledge about the countries where outbreaks are much more likely to happen.”
That capacity has been rattled by repeated reductions in force, as well as leadership churn. Former and current staff members describe a cycle of cuts and reinstatements — and a hiring freeze — that has left teams depleted and country offices thinly staffed.
The concern isn’t theoretical. The center played an “enormous role” in containing the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, says Dr. Kevin De Cock, the inaugural director of U.S. CDC’s Global Health Center, who deployed several times to West Africa as CDC team lead in Liberia.
“Would we be able to do that in an effective way today?” he asks. “I'm not sure we could, because we’re not organized. We’ve lost people.”
Read: After a year of chaos, US CDC’s global health work hangs in the balance
Related: Haphazard US CDC staff cuts leave questions around impact
Vought 'em out
The White House has nominated budget chief Russell Vought to serve on the board of two aid agencies he’s attempted to strip funds from in the past: the Inter-American Foundation and the U.S. African Development Foundation.
In early 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump declared both institutions — along with the U.S. Institute of Peace — “unnecessary,” and instructed all three agencies to reduce their operations to the legal minimums.. The move triggered three separate battles in court, and while the Inter-American Foundation won its case against the Trump administration, cases brought by the USIP and USADF are ongoing.
Throughout last year, Vought and the Trump administration repeatedly attempted to slice away the institutions’ budgets — but in the latest appropriations bill released this month, lawmakers proposed a balance sheet for both groups that far surpassed zero. If lawmakers reach a final compromise, the IAF is slated to receive $10 million until 2027, while the USADF will get $6 million for the same time period.
Still, the administration may soon get a boost from the inside: The White House also nominated Laken Rapier and Ken Jackson to the boards of USADF and IAF, respectively, elevating two of the key officials who led the charge to dismantle USAID throughout 2025.
ICYMI: US lawmakers strike $50B foreign assistance deal, surpassing Trump’s plan
Crisis meets reality
The year 2025 blew apart long-standing assumptions about global food systems. Aid budgets shrank, and governments made clear that the era of predictable, rules-based food assistance is ending. What comes next isn’t just about replacing lost money — it’s about whether food systems can survive prolonged instability, writes my colleague Ayenat Mersie.
“As we commence 2026, the question for global food systems is not whether the pressure will intensify, but whether we will respond with the urgency and coordination the context demands,” AGRA President Alice Ruhweza tells Ayenat. The pressure is already immense: At least 318 million people face acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme, while food aid covers less than half of global need.
“2026 will be the year the world has to admit a hard truth … humanitarian aid alone cannot keep pace with today’s food crises,” says Beth Bechdol, deputy director-general at the Food and Agriculture Organization. With funding shrinking and shocks multiplying, she argues that agriculture must be treated as a front-line investment in stability and recovery.
The question for 2026 is whether food systems can pivot fast enough — toward resilience, smarter investment, and new models of support — before instability turns into something far worse.
Read: What we’re watching across food systems in 2026 (Pro)
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New potatoes
Scientists have cooked up a potato variety that could finally get the upper hand on late blight — the disease behind the Irish potato famine and one that’s spreading fast as the climate warms.
The innovative spud, known as CIP-Asiryq, was developed by the Peru-based International Potato Center with support from Indigenous communities in the Andes. It resists late blight, needs fewer fungicide sprays, and cooks faster than many existing potatoes — saving farmers money and cutting household energy use.
That matters because potatoes feed 1.3 billion people worldwide and provide 17% of the world’s calories from food crops. But climate change is pushing late blight into new places. By pulling disease-resistant traits from wild potatoes, researchers created a model that can be replicated globally.
For farmers facing brutal losses, the impact could be immediate, writes Devex contributing reporter David Njagi. Climate change “is not a distant threat — it’s happening now. If we fail to act, the outlook is stark: in some regions, rain-fed agriculture could become impossible; in others, land will no longer be suitable for food production,” says Kaveh Zahedi, director of the office of climate change, biodiversity, and environment at FAO.
Read: Hot potato — how a new blight-resistant variety is boosting food security
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Neverending story
The U.S. decision to withdraw from 66 international organizations isn’t an exception — it’s a clear sign that the postwar idea of power answering to rules and cooperation protecting the vulnerable is on life support, writes Bijan Farnoudi, the former spokesperson to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an opinion piece for Devex.
The system was flawed and uneven, but it mattered, Farnoudi writes. It shaped how billions understood the world, helped avert crises, and saved lives. From the wreckage of two world wars came international law and institutions like the United Nations, proof that ideas can still move history in the right direction.
So why is it failing now? Last year, a U.N. report offered an unintentional punchline: Most U.N. reports aren’t widely read. For many inside the system, that irony captured a deeper problem — a sector stuck in bureaucratic habits and steadily losing attention, legitimacy, and funding.
In an attention economy, invisibility is fatal. Everyone knows the leaders of Tesla, Amazon, Meta, or Apple. But unless you’re a specialist, you may not be able to identify the leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or the International Union for Conservation of Nature — just three of the organizations the U.S. is now leaving.
Opinion: Development leaders must win the narrative battle or disappear
Related read: Did the aid sector really screw up its communications strategy? (Pro)
In other news
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and independent experts are calling for an immediate halt to the Iranian government’s “horrific” crackdown on anti-government protesters, as the death toll climbs to 2,571. [UN News and Reuters]
A quarter of low-income countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa, are poorer today than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a World Bank report. [The Guardian]
Despite a cooling influence from La Niña, 2025 still ranked as the third-hottest year on record and completed the first three-year stretch where global temperatures averaged above the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit. [BBC]
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About the author
Helen Murphy
Helen is an award-winning journalist and Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development in the Americas. Based in Colombia, she previously covered war, politics, financial markets, and general news for Reuters, where she headed the bureau, and for Bloomberg in Colombia and Argentina, where she witnessed the financial meltdown. She started her career in London as a reporter for Euromoney Publications before moving to Hong Kong to work for a daily newspaper.
