A U.S. judge continues to push the Trump administration to unfreeze foreign aid funding. Will it listen this time around?
Also in today’s edition: The funding freeze has hit hard in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps as Myanmar’s escalating conflict drives more refugees into the overcrowded camps, where crime and malnutrition are on the rise.
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Let’s try this again
On Feb. 13, a U.S. federal court issued a temporary restraining order requiring the Trump administration to lift its blanket freeze on foreign assistance funding for existing projects. Last night, it extended that order and stressed that the administration needed to get the money flowing again, which it has largely refused to do.
The administration had claimed it could terminate nearly all USAID contracts and grants because the judge’s original order stated that normal contract clauses can still be enforced. But in the most recent hearing, Judge Amir Ali pushed back on that assertion.
“The Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” he stated.
But the judge didn’t find the government in contempt, which was what the plaintiffs in the case — including for-profit contractors and NGOs — had been seeking.
Instead, Ali extended the temporary restraining order until midnight on March 10, 2025. Though his earlier reversal hasn’t yet resulted in the thaw of Trump’s funding freeze, this latest order is clear: The administration cannot “simply replace their earlier implementations with ‘other directives’” to suspend, pause, or terminate obligated funds.
Read: Court extends order lifting Trump administration's foreign aid freeze
🎧 Listen: On the latest episode of our podcast series, Devex’s David Ainsworth, Raj Kumar, and Anna Gawel break down the lawsuits filed against the Trump administration and the government's responses to the challenges.
Hanging by a thread
The freeze on USAID programs has wreaked havoc in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps, shuttering hospitals and threatening food, health, and sanitation services for over a million refugees. The situation was not exactly hunky-dory before.
Funding was already at an all-time low, and Myanmar’s escalating civil war is making things worse. The Arakan Army’s capture of the border region has driven thousands more Rohingya into overcrowded camps, while repatriation talks have stalled. Crime is on the rise, with kidnappings, extortion, and violent attacks becoming disturbingly common.
“The lack of food keeps people hungry and angry, fueling crimes, domestic abuse, quarrels, and a worsening mental health crisis,” warns Rohingya community volunteer Sahat Zia Hero. Food aid was already slashed in 2023, leaving 90% of refugees without enough to eat, and malnutrition levels at their worst since 2017. Though rations were briefly restored in 2024, the freeze threatens to undo any progress, writes Masum Billah for Devex.
Despite assurances from Bangladesh’s interim government, the Trump administration hasn’t confirmed continued support. A memo from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentions a humanitarian waiver, but Rohingya refugees and aid workers say the impact of the freeze is already being felt. Five hospitals have shut down, and critical programs — including maternal health services, gender-based violence support, and sanitation efforts — are now in jeopardy.
For Rohingya community volunteers like Zia Hero, the uncertainty is devastating. “Our opportunities have diminished. New recruitments are rare, many long-time volunteers are out of work, payments have been reduced, and multiple projects have been canceled,” he explains. As the crisis deepens, the strain on the host community is also growing, with rising security risks and worsening conditions in the camps.
Read: USAID freeze deepens Rohingya crisis, exacerbating ‘subhuman conditions’
On the chopping block
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed yet another executive order, this time dismantling the Inter-American Foundation, the U.S. African Development Foundation, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, calling them “unnecessary.”
Created by the U.S. Congress around 50 years ago, these agencies operate on modest budgets of $40million to $55 million annually, funding development projects in Latin America and Africa, as well as global conflict resolution. Despite their small size, they've faced scrutiny — critics accuse the U.S. Institute of Peace of having an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning staff, while the African Development Foundation was flagged for financial mismanagement, though audits later found no violations.
Trump’s order gives agency heads 14 days to comply with the directive and to justify their existence or begin scaling down to the bare legal minimum. It also takes aim at various advisory groups, including USAID’s long-standing committee on voluntary foreign aid, established after World War II. Even San Francisco’s Presidio Trust, which manages a historic park, is in the crosshairs, writes my colleague Elissa Miolene.
Read: Trump to scrap US African Development Foundation, US Institute of Peace
Ambitious appeal
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is aiming to raise $18 billion to continue its critical work. A fully funded Global Fund “could save an additional 23 million lives between 2027 and 2029.”
Executive Director Peter Sands highlighted the fund’s high return on investment, stating that “for every dollar invested in the Global Fund, they expect a return of $19 in health and economic benefits.”
South Africa and the United Kingdom will cohost the replenishment effort, but raising the full amount won’t be easy, writes Devex Senior Reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo. The ask comes amid donor fatigue and a U.S. aid funding freeze that has already forced global health programs, including those tackling HIV, TB, and malaria, to shut down.
“This would be a record breaking replenishment, which would be surprising, given reduced interest in global health from major donors,” says Pete Baker, deputy director of the global health policy program at the Center for Global Development.
The fund also leans heavily on U.S. support, which makes up about 30% of its funding. “The US simultaneous retreat from aid, reproductive health and multilateralism, should be concerning for the size of its future commitment [to] the Global Fund,” Baker warns.
With fundraising uncertainty ahead, the Global Fund’s ambitious goal may be a tough sell — but with millions of lives on the line, advocates say the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Read: Global Fund launches $18B replenishment in tough fundraising landscape
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Aftershock
U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s bombshell speech at the Munich Security Conference, or MSC, sent tremors through global development circles, a key insider says. Ignoring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vance attacked European democracies, aligning with far-right narratives.
At a Devex Pro event, Michael Werz, MSC’s senior adviser for North America and multilateral affairs, called it a historic moment: “There was a lot of stubbornness, a lot of attitude of ‘we’re not going to bend our knee,’” he said — referring to conversations he overheard and discussions in development, climate, and international finance meetings that followed last Friday’s speech. Behind the scenes, leaders scrambled to counter Vance’s stance, discussing new alliances — possibly with South Africa, Brazil, and India — to “stabilize the global system.”
One European attendee put it bluntly: “So the Americans tried to denazify the Europeans after ‘45, and now they’re trying to renazify the Europeans?”
Werz warned that if the USAID funding freeze continues, “we will reach a point of no return relatively quickly.” He also called for rebranding military budgets as “unified security budgets” to support development and security together.
While some hard-line figures still dismiss development’s role in security — “they say we don't want to have a conversation with tree huggers and do-gooders” — Werz insisted they are now “a minority.” He argued for framing issues like gender equality in economic terms, noting most smallholder farmers ensuring food security are women.
MSC, once a backroom military forum of “elderly white men smoking cigarettes,” now grapples with modern threats — climate, food security, and AI. The fallout from Vance’s speech may reshape the future of global cooperation, writes my colleague Rob Merrick.
Read: ‘We're not going to bend our knee’— how aid leaders reacted to VP at MSC (Pro)
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The low country
“Devastating” and “incomprehensible” — that’s how Dutch NGOs reacted to a letter from Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Reinette Klever on Thursday setting out how the right-wing governing coalition will implement development spending cuts of €2.4 billion ($2.5 billion) from 2027.
“All the programmes we fund must contribute directly to our own interests: promoting trade, enhancing security and reducing migration,” Klever says.
And, the statement adds, “funding for various programmes will be terminated, in areas such as gender equality, vocational and higher education, sport and culture,” while “funding for climate action, civil society and UN organisations will be reduced.”
The NGO Cordaid tells Devex that cutting programs on women’s rights and gender equality now is incomprehensible and “unprecedented” for the Netherlands, which was known as a champion of women’s rights.
“This is very harmful at a time when autocratic regimes and conservative forces have the wind in their sails and women's rights are under severe pressure in many countries,” Cordaid writes, adding that it urged the Dutch Lower House to reverse the move.
Related: ‘Unprecedented’ cuts leave Dutch civil society organizations reeling (Pro)
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In other news
British International Investment, the U.K.’s development finance institution, has come under scrutiny as new data revealed it spent £7 million on business-class flights in the past two years. [Financial Times]
At a Caribbean regional conference in Barbados, U.N. chief António Guterres proposed using U.N. funds to finance a multinational force that will combat gangs in Haiti. [AP]
Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo has displaced some 35,000 people, who have now fled to Burundi. [UN News]
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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.
