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Earlier this week during the 80th United Nations General Assembly, the Trump administration’s fraught ties with aid groups burst into view. The Global Health Council was labeled “anti-American” and blocked entry to an event. The clash of sides underscored deepening divides as Washington rolled out its “America First” health strategy.
Also in today’s edition: An influx of philanthropic capital from former USAID staffers who turned lemons into $110 million.
Who’s at the table?
Who gets a seat at the table in shaping the future of U.S. global health policy? If it’s up to Jeremy Lewin, the U.S. State Department official now in charge of foreign aid, certain NGOs should be shut out of discussions.
Lewin spotted the Global Health Council on the guest list for a side event about U.S. global health assistance and bristled at its presence. He called the group “anti-American” — and the placard marking the organization’s seat was quickly pulled. Moments later, the Global Health Council, which is suing the administration over aid cuts, was denied entry altogether. A Devex reporter saw the incident, and multiple sources confirmed the ouster. Neither GHC, the State Department, nor the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which hosted the event, responded to inquiries.
The episode highlighted how legal battles over aid funding are spilling into public forums, with one of the country’s biggest global health groups literally shut out of a key conversation.
It also sharpened the edge of what was otherwise a measured discussion of the Trump administration’s new “America First Global Health Strategy.” Released just last week, the strategy takes direct aim at global health NGOs, accusing them of following “perverse incentives to self-perpetuate” rather than handing ownership over to governments.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had concerns that it, too, could be sidelined by the new U.S. approach to global health, as language in proposed legislation from the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee explicitly bars the Pan-African health organization from taking part in direct country agreements, known as “compacts,” between the U.S. and African nations. However, an Africa CDC spokesperson has since confirmed to Devex that its concerns have been assuaged and that the U.S. has committed to working with the organization to implement its new strategy.
For many in the room, the clash over a seat at the table said almost as much about U.S. foreign aid priorities as the strategy itself.
Read: Trump’s 'America First' global health plan sidelines NGOs
Read: What role will Africa CDC play in an ‘America First’ global health vision?
+ Check out our UNGA80 reporters’ notebook for Day 3 to catch up with beat-by-beat reporting on all the major news, events, and behind-the-scenes at UNGA and Climate Week.
From the ashes
Former USAID staffers who lost their jobs in the agency’s dismantling have turned crisis into innovation. In just six months, they say their new initiative — Project Resource Optimization, or PRO — has mobilized $110 million in philanthropic capital to keep formerly USAID-funded lifesaving health and humanitarian programs afloat.
“This started as an important but more narrow conversation with donors trying to figure out, how do I optimize my giving in this time?” said Sasha Gallant, former head of USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, at a Devex Impact House event on the sidelines of UNGA80. “Every donor was asking this question … so we realized the best thing to do was actually to try to make as comprehensive an answer as possible.”
From malnutrition treatment to HIV medicine delivery, PRO created a vetted list of proven, cost-effective projects at risk of shutdown and matched them with donors ready to step in. Kara Weiss of the CRI Foundation called it “a really good example of trust-based partnerships,” while Shawn Baker of Helen Keller Intl said the funding “has been the largest infusion of money to stop some of the hemorrhaging caused by these terminations.”
Originally conceived as a stopgap, PRO is now hosted by the Center for Global Development and looking ahead. “I absolutely want to celebrate this moment,” Gallant said, adding she wants to avoid “overly” extrapolating from it. “Is there more that can be done? Are there other programs that should be here?”
Read: How Ex-USAID staffers turned crisis into action, mobilizing $110M for projects
The neglected global killer
Noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, kill more than 43 million people a year, yet funding for them is still just a sliver of global aid. Experts hope today’s high-level meeting will finally change that.
“Denying treatment is not an option” for millions already living with chronic disease, said Dr. Saia Ma’u Piukala, World Health Organization regional director for Western Pacific, during a Devex Impact House panel at UNGA80. But he warned that financing remains far below what’s needed.
Prevention and treatment also face hurdles, especially in conflict and low-resource settings, writes Senior Reporter Jenny Lei Ravelo. “You think about food access … but these are people who are living in food deserts who have very little individual control over what they can choose,” said Dr. Anjoli Anand, NCDs adviser for Médecins Sans Frontières. Even basic diabetes care is often out of reach, with insulin pens priced out of range and some patients forced to visit hospitals twice a day for injections.
Affordability is also undermined by middlemen inflating medicine prices, said Emmanuel Akpakwu, CEO and founder of Axmed. The way forward, experts argued, is stronger primary health care, community engagement, accountability systems, and — above all — more focus on prevention. As John Hewko, general secretary and CEO of Rotary International, put it: “It's significantly cheaper to prevent a chronic disease than to have to treat it.”
One thing missing from the conversation? Air pollution — an omission that has dismayed experts pointing out how important a factor it is in human death and disease. Catherine Davison reports for Devex on the fight to include air pollution in the declaration, and why it ultimately didn’t succeed.
Read: Experts push for action in tackling NCDs crisis
Read: Air pollution gets ignored in UNGA noncommunicable disease declaration
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Jobs meet diplomacy
Obviously New York is buzzing even more than usual this week as UNGA and Climate Week take over the city — but it’s also a hub for global development jobs. With the U.N. headquartered there and heavyweights such as The Rockefeller Foundation, Helmsley Charitable Trust, and Rainforest Alliance calling it home, it’s a magnet for talent tackling everything from health to climate.
Since January, 746 development jobs have opened in New York. UNICEF leads the U.N. pack with 71 postings, followed by the U.N. Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and U.N. Development Programme, with even the U.N. Joint Staff Pension Fund hiring. On the non-U.N. side, The Rockefeller Foundation, Vital Strategies, and the Clinton Foundation are among the busiest recruiters.
Read: The top global development organizations hiring in New York City (Career)
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Cuts, crises, and credibility
Foreign aid cuts aren’t about shrinking economies — they’re about politics, warned development leaders at a Devex Impact House event. “The decision to decline [official development assistance]. … It’s a political decision that is not determined by GDP contraction in donor countries. It’s politics,” said Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of UNOPS.
He argued that advocates need to adapt: “What we don’t invest in others, it will harm our own security and progress,” he told Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar. “We have to be humble and brave … collaborate more, coordinate better, and deliver at scale.”
Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, pointed to an “inconvenient truth”: domestic politics are turning against aid when poverty and migration pressures mount at home. “You’ve got to make the value proposition even clearer now to the domestic constituencies who are suffering … How do you square away that I’m suffering here at home, and over there in some foreign land, you’re trying to save some other people?”
Both weighed in on U.N. reform. Moreira da Silva insisted it should be about strengthening multilateralism: “I don’t see this as getting leaner, but as getting fit … the only logo that matters is the U.N..” Ero was skeptical: “That train has left the station … There are real question marks about the lack of a strategy.”
And despite all the challenges, Moreira da Silva pointed to UNOPS’ post-2022 scandal comeback: “We are getting more projects than we had in the past. We are delivering, we are partnering more … it’s possible to reform.”
Read: Politics, not economics, driving foreign aid cuts, experts warn
Related: Can the UN really reform itself? (Pro)
See also: Top UN official defends reform agenda as genuine, despite skepticism (Pro)
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No time to lose
Navyn Salem, CEO of Edesia — a nonprofit producer of lifesaving foods for malnourished children — has a blunt message: “Children can’t wait.” At our Impact House event during UNGA80, she described how 185,535 boxes of lifesaving food are stuck in Edesia’s Rhode Island warehouse, waiting on Trump administration clearance.
“It’s not about expiration … [malnourished] children have hours or days or weeks,” she said. With USAID shut down, Edesia is scrambling to build coalitions — from NGOs to airlines such as United and groups such as IsraAID — to get ready-to-eat therapeutic foods into places such as Gaza and 18 other countries.
She’s also trying to show the U.S. Congress that global development work can fit within “America First” by delivering impact more efficiently. “We also recognize that there's a massive opportunity to create efficiencies that weren't there before,” she said.
Read: Key to surviving US aid cuts is new partnerships, says Edesia CEO
In other news
Despite calls for a ceasefire, Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza yesterday, killing at least 85 Palestinians, including some 20 people sheltering at a makeshift refuge. [Al Jazeera]
Christian Aid staff were told not to refer to Israel’s action in Gaza as “genocide,” leaked internal documents show. [The New Humanitarian]
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer may not attend COP30 in Belém, Brazil, despite previously criticizing former Conservative leaders for avoiding the U.N. climate conference. [Financial Times]
Update, Sept. 25, 2025: In this version of today’s Newswire, we included a clarification about Africa CDC’s concerns that it could be sidelined as the U.S. rolls out its new approach to global health.
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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.
