USAID’s once 10,000-strong workforce was razed in the first few months of the Trump administration, leaving a trail of experienced but jobless professionals in a state of shock. A flicker of hope emerged with news of rehirings at the State Department — but that hope should be tempered by caution.
Also in today's edition: The 78th World Health Assembly kicks off, and an intellectual giant passes away.
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When demand outstrips supply
USAID’s merger with the State Department — a polite way of saying the leftovers are being gobbled up by the State — did at least dangle the prospect that some of the agency’s fired staff could find a new home. The only problem is that home looks like a cramped studio with thousands of people jostling to live in it.
USAID staffers are starting to get a trickle of information about the “very limited number of positions” available to them at the State Department. Despite the slim pickings, the overwhelming demand for those jobs was demonstrated by the fact that a Friday Zoom call was almost immediately filled to the max.
While some were blocked from accessing the call, others listened to State Department officials outline what they referred to as a “very expedited” hiring process, one that was geared toward ensuring State could continue the foreign assistance programs that had survived the Trump administration’s cull.
“There is a very limited amount of time, as you’re well aware of,” said Judith Semilota of the State Department’s Transition Assistance Working Group during Friday’s call. Staff are being given two options: Roles in Washington will be hired through “Schedule A” authority, a type of hiring flexibility that allows agencies to pull people without going through a traditional competitive process; while roles overseas will be categorized as limited noncareer appointments to the foreign service, or LNAs.
The latter set of roles requires a current security clearance, medical clearance, and a suitability interview. Either way, the appointments will be two years in duration and managed by the department’s regional and functional bureaus.
“We do want to emphasize, as you may have heard, there are a very limited number of positions — U.S. direct hire positions — for both here and overseas,” Semilota said.
‘Avalanche of outreach’ — and résumés
Also discussed on Friday’s Zoom call was hiring for global health positions once managed by USAID that will transition to State’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy by July 1. The number of positions people are vying for? A total of 80 — 50 in Washington and 30 overseas, my colleague Sara Jerving reports. The deadline for overseas applications is today — but the bureau has also acknowledged that the email address that applicants were told to send their applications to has had technical issues.
Most of the overseas positions will be based across Africa, except for one in New Delhi — which will be responsible for the entirety of the U.S. government’s South and Central Asia bilateral health programs — and one in Geneva responsible for coordinating with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other Geneva-based organizations. This is according to a series of emails sent to USAID global health staff and the informational call held by the State Department.
Those emails, which Devex obtained, stated there has been an “avalanche of outreach” and résumés for the new roles.
But it’s not just the limited supply of jobs that has people worried — it’s the way they’re being doled out.
USAID employees, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed concern about the transparency of the fast-paced hiring process and whether it is competitive and merit-based. They said there has been a lack of public advertisements for positions and a dependency on an opaque referral process.
In the chat box of the call, one attendee wrote: “Why not just slow down the transition and do it right? What is the crisis?” Another wrote that they’d been told by someone in the Global Health Security and Diplomacy Bureau that “most positions were already spoken for.”
“This is ridiculous honestly,” another wrote, “the US government needs to follow our equal opportunity laws — part of that basic requirement is actually posting positions so everyone can see what is available.”
Read: 'Avalanche of outreach' as people vie for State global health positions
What’s what at WHA
Our global health team will be on the ground this week in Geneva for the 78th World Health Assembly, one of the biggest events in global health. And we’ve got every inch of it covered.
We’ve compiled a list of who to watch at WHA, from, of course, World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to WHO’s new executive director of health emergencies, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu — who is also one of the speakers at our Devex CheckUp @ WHA78 summit.
One group we don’t expect to see? The United States. According to a provisional list of delegates published last night, it looks like the country is skipping the event altogether. There’s been plenty of speculation about whether a U.S. delegation would show up, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from WHO on his first day in office — a move that kicked off a major funding crisis. On the other hand, China is showing up in force, with more than 170 delegates expected to attend.
My colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo also combed through the 75 items and subitems that will be debated at WHA to give you an overview of the main issues at play: the pandemic treaty; WHO’s budget; WHO’s new structure; the new Africa regional director for WHO; global health financing; and noncommunicable diseases.
Read: 6 key issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly
Also: Who to follow at this year’s World Health Assembly
Special edition: Here’s all you need to know for #WHA78
Listen: Previewing the World Health Assembly, and Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
+ Our team of global health reporters in Geneva will be hosting a series of panel sessions and high-level interviews with some important global health leaders. Check out the full program of Devex @ WHA78, and if you are in town, request an invite to join us or register to watch online.
The statistics behind starvation
We know that global hunger is surging, but a new report quantifies the crisis with figures that make for disturbing reading.
More than 295 million people in 53 countries faced acute food insecurity around the world last year, an alarming high driven by escalating conflict, economic shocks, and extreme weather — exacerbated by deep funding cuts to humanitarian aid, Devex Senior Editor Tania Karas writes.
It’s the sixth consecutive annual increase in the number of people facing starvation, and the outlook for 2025 is “bleak” as well, according to a report by a consortium of international organizations and NGOs.
“The message is stark. Hunger and malnutrition are spreading faster than our ability to respond, yet globally, a third of all food produced is lost or wasted,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in the report’s foreword. “Long-standing crises are now being compounded by another, more recent one: the dramatic reduction in lifesaving humanitarian funding to respond to these needs.”
Read: Hunger soars amid conflict, extreme weather, and aid cuts, UN says
The other ‘Godfather’
Joseph Nye, the influential scholar and author affectionately known as “the godfather of soft power,” died May 6 at the age of 88 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Nye’s enduring concept of “soft power” transformed how the U.S. and other nations approached global development and international aid, Devex contributing reporter Rebecca Root writes.
He showed that power doesn’t just stem from military or economic might. A nation can exert its strength through “soft power,” which he defined as “a country's ability to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure.” Nye felt the idea of attraction and persuasion, rather than coercion or payment, was missing in geopolitics.
“His ‘soft power’ formulation was more than an academic concept; it created policy awareness and led to new political thinking about the nature and use of power,” Ralph Cossa of Pacific Forum International tells Rebecca.
Recently, though, as nationalist presidents such as Trump rose and multilateralism retrenched, the concept of soft power increasingly seems like a relic from a bygone era.
But Fen Osler Hampson, president of the World Refugee & Migration Council and longtime friend of Nye, calls him an “incurable optimist.”
Nye believed in “America’s better soul and not its dark soul,” Osler Hampson says, and “that the forces of reason would eventually win in the struggle we’re seeing right now internally in the U.S.”
Read: Godfather of soft power leaves legacy of diplomacy at time of volatility
In other news
Israel has agreed to lift its blockade of Gaza, allowing basic humanitarian aid to go through existing channels. [Axios]
The U.N. human rights agency, families of refugees, and their lawyer have accused India of pushing at least 40 Rohingya refugees off a boat into the sea close to its maritime border with Myanmar. [AP]
Former USAID Administrator Samantha Powers rejoins the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School. [Harvard Law Today]
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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.
