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What will the future of USAID, or what’s left of it, look like? We have exclusive details on one potential scenario.
Also in today’s edition: The longstanding push to localize aid was finally making headway. Then came a U.S. aid freeze that stopped everything in its tracks.
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The USAID-State merger, fleshed out?
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Now that the dismantling of USAID has, for the most part, sunk in, attention has turned to the inevitable question: What comes next?
Devex has exclusively learned of one proposal: To dissolve what’s left of USAID by Sept. 30, 2025, and in its place, embed a new humanitarian assistance bureau into the State Department.
This idea for the agency’s future was shared by Tim Meisburger, the head of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, according to several former and current USAID staffers, including one with direct knowledge of the information.
Meisburger — who returned to USAID this January — reportedly told some two dozen staff that the new bureau would have four offices: the first centered on acquisitions and assistance; the second centered on humanitarian and food assistance; the third targeting global disaster response; and the fourth focused on global health emergencies.
It’s unclear how far along the idea for this potential merger is, whether U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has seen it, whether there are competing visions for USAID’s future, and whether the U.S. Congress has received an official notification of this proposed reorganization. But if implemented, the approach would mean the dissolution of everything else USAID has worked on for decades — slicing away the agency’s work on democracy, governance, and human rights; economic growth and private sector engagement; and nearly all things related to development.
And for Meisburger, that would mean making “lemonade out of lemons,” according to meeting notes reviewed by Devex.
“Most of the madness is behind us,” said Meisburger, according to the same set of notes.
Exclusive: Inside the closed-door meeting on USAID’s future
No shutdown — but no answers either
As usual, there was drama surrounding last week’s budget talks in the U.S. Congress, but ultimately it was able to muster up a continuing resolution until September. It’s a temporary patch because it simply maintains fiscal 2024 funding levels for fiscal 2025, but most (not everyone) felt it was better than a government shutdown.
So does that mean Congress is appropriating about $60 billion in previously agreed-upon foreign assistance? Don’t get too excited just yet.
Big questions remain, my colleague Adva Saldinger writes. Will Congress — either at the behest of the administration or of its own volition — move in the weeks or months ahead to pass a rescission package to claw back some of the funding approved in the bill and codify the cuts made by the Trump administration? Or will Congress “assert its power of the purse” and make sure the administration is spending money it approved?
Theoretically, lawmakers could take a stronger stance on Trump’s foreign aid policies, according to Justin Fugle of Plan International.
“They have not been involved very much so far in the foreign aid review, in the dismantling of USAID,” but they could help define what foreign aid looks like in the State Department and how USAID and its functions live on, he says.
Looking at some of the longer-term budget discussions, he says it appears that at least some lawmakers are “clearly envisioning a future of foreign aid and they have to start to build the new mechanisms that are going to be utilized to implement all of that.”
Read: US Congress passes budget bill, but questions remain on foreign aid
Nail in the coffin?
USAID under former administrators such as Samantha Power, Mark Green, and Rajiv Shah touted the power of localization. Local organizations listened, hopeful that the vast American aid apparatus was finally opening up to smaller players. Many reshaped their operations to fit the mold of USAID’s localization agenda, investing in the systems, skills, and staff to align with the world’s largest bilateral aid agency.
Now that the agency is no more, many have been left feeling dejected, betrayed, and, in a sense, grieving.
“The past month has been like a big funeral. A big funeral across the entire country, and a big funeral across the world,” Moses Isooba, the executive director of the Uganda National NGO Forum, tells my colleague Elissa Miolene. “USAID was the pace-setter on locally led development. Now that the pace-setter has now gone away, what we are most likely going to see is not only the rolling back of budgets, but the rolling back on the whole idea of localization.”
Localization has in fact been a priority for both Republican and Democratic administrations — during the first Trump presidency, USAID’s direct local funding for HIV/AIDS programs jumped by 81%.
However, during his second administration, USAID’s work has been slashed by over 80% and the remnants folded into the State Department.
“All along, perhaps, we were fooled. This was not a partnership. This was just for the benefit of the U.S.,” Isooba says. “Now, we know that the United States is not a reliable partner.”
Read: 'Like a big funeral' — USAID cuts leave local partners fighting to survive (Pro)
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One-two punch
“When I meet up with people at the moment and they say ‘how are you?’, it’s a bit like going to a funeral and being asked, ‘how are you, under the circumstances?’”
— Romilly Greenhill, chief executive, BondApparently, the sense of mourning extends across the pond, where the United Kingdom has also taken an ax to its aid budget, Devex contributing reporter Susannah Birkwood writes.
In a way, U.K. NGOs have been punched twice — first by the Trump administration’s freeze, which deprived the Brits of critical dollars, and then by their own government, which on Feb. 25, made the shock announcement that it was kneecapping the country’s foreign aid spending from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income by 2027 — its lowest level in more than 25 years.
It may be too soon to predict what impact the U.K. cuts will have. The current focus is on persuading the U.K. government to reverse its decision to make cuts even deeper than those that threw the sector into a tailspin in 2021.
Helen McEachern, CEO of Care International UK, is keeping an open mind. Her organization lost almost half its income due to previous cuts from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, but it’s been looking at high-net-worth individuals and foundations to diversify funding streams.
McEachern admits, though, that it’s a luxury not everyone can afford: “We INGOs are exposed but we have other sources [of income] — most of those organisations, FCDO contracts is all they do. If the impact is big for us, for them, it’s massive. What happens to them now?”
Read: With FCDO slashing budgets, where will UK NGOs turn for funding?
DOGE-a vu
The Department of Government Efficiency engaged in a strange standoff with officials from the U.S. African Development Corporation after the latter barred the former from entering its office on March 5. The next day, DOGE succeeded in entering the office as part of its drive to dismantle the tiny agency.
However, USADF is not the only entity in the crosshairs of Trump, who on Feb. 19 branded the USADF, the Inter-American Foundation, and the U.S. Institute of Peace as “unnecessary.”
So it probably didn’t come as a huge surprise that several members of DOGE tried to enter USIP unannounced on Friday afternoon, only to be similarly rebuffed. But this time, DOGE was accompanied by two FBI agents, as opposed to the U.S. marshals who entered USADF. Another distinction: USIP is different from USADF and IAF in that it’s an independent nonprofit established by Congress.
The nonprofit stated that the DOGE representatives “were met at the door by the Institute’s outside counsel who informed them of USIP’s private and independent status as a non-executive branch agency. Following that discussion, the DOGE representatives departed.”
USIP added that it “remains committed to the cooperation and comity with the Trump Administration it has exhibited in its work with seven administrations since its founding under President Ronald Reagan.”
In other news
Syria’s interim government will participate at the European Union-hosted annual aid pledging conference today in Brussels. [Reuters]
A network of New Zealand-based charity groups and NGOs is appealing to the country’s government to ramp up its aid spending in the Pacific amid cutbacks by other bilateral donors. [Scoop]
A new law in Peru seeks to keep nonprofits and civil society organizations from suing the government for human rights abuses. [The Guardian]
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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.
