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USAID is back to communicating with the public — but with strict limits: no talk of DEIA rollbacks, hiring freezes, or paused foreign aid. Existing DEIA content? Archived. New content? Not happening. Staff and partners are treading carefully.
Also in today’s edition: Health experts rally behind the World Health Organization, the travel freeze on HHS, how burping — and farting — cows impact the climate, what’s happening with the new USAID pick, and how the IDB tackles organized crime.
DEIA, aid, and caution
USAID has lifted its freeze on public communications — but not without exceptions. Employees can now resume sharing information, except on four Trump-era executive orders: federal hiring freeze, a return-to-office mandate, a pause on foreign aid disbursements, and the rollback of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or DEIA, programs.
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Staff were instructed to unpublish and archive existing DEIA content and hold off on creating anything new, Devex Senior Reporter Sara Jerving writes. The internal communications director urged caution as the agency awaits further guidance, adding that USAID partners should follow suit where possible. Public appearances and events? Still a go, as long as they steer clear of these hot-button topics.
No word yet from USAID on these changes, but one thing’s clear: Discretion is the name of the game.
Scoop: USAID employees barred from discussing 4 executive orders publicly
+Listen: For the latest episode of our podcast series Devex’s Rumbi Chakamba, Raj Kumar, and Elissa Miolene discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s first week in office and what some of his executive orders might mean for global development.
HHS travel freeze: No planes, no progress
Following Trump’s inauguration, employees of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were hit with an indefinite travel freeze, canceling even preapproved engagements. Staff can only return from trips already underway, but all other travel is grounded. Critics call it disruptive, delaying projects and racking up future costs, while some see echoes of past budget-cutting policies.
The freeze comes alongside Trump’s other executive orders, including pulling the U.S. out of WHO. Employees must pause public communications, pending approval from Trump appointees, Sara writes.
One HHS employee sums it up: “This is definitely not making America or Americans safer and it’s definitely not improving fiscal responsibility because all of these travel plans will likely be postponed to later dates incurring more fees and delaying progress on projects.”
Read: US Health and Human Services employee travel frozen
Cow burps and climate change
While carbon dioxide hogs the climate spotlight, methane quietly punches above its weight as a short-term climate heavyweight. Accounting for 16% of global emissions, methane is over 80 times more potent than CO2 in trapping heat over a 20-year period. The silver lining? Methane only lingers in the atmosphere for about 12 years, meaning cutting emissions now could deliver rapid climate wins.
The biggest culprits? Cow burps (yes, really), rice paddies, and leaky oil and gas infrastructure, Devex climate reporter Ayenat Mersie writes.
Solutions are already on the table. Feeding cows better diets, adding supplements like seaweed — think “Bean-O” for livestock — and improving animal health can all slash emissions. Even tech-savvy solutions such as methane-sniffing drones are in play. Yet despite its climate-crisis urgency, methane gets just 2% of global climate finance.
However, the tide is turning. From methane reduction pledges at COP summits to projects such as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance and even the world’s first livestock emissions tax in Denmark, the world is starting to wake up to methane’s outsized impact.
If farmers, researchers, and policymakers can double down on proven solutions, we might just harness this gassy problem — and finally let cows off the hook for climate change. After all, they’ve already got enough beef with us.
Read: These groups are fighting cow burps to slow methane emissions
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Why not both?
Trump has yet to announce his pick for USAID administrator ... or has he? The latest suspicion floating around in the ever-churning U.S. foreign aid leadership rumor mill is that Trump's appointment of Peter Marocco as director of the Office of Foreign Assistance, aka F Bureau, at the State Department could have larger significance.
The Heritage Foundation's infamous Project 2025 road map includes a proposal to combine the positions of USAID administrator and F Bureau director in a “dual-hatted” role with broader authority over U.S. foreign assistance agencies and funding. (For those of you who made it to Devex World back in October, you might recall that Trump's former foreign assistance director, Jim Richardson, made the same pitch.) In other words, maybe Marocco will have both jobs?
It wouldn't be the first time this has happened, Devex Senior Reporter Michael Igoe tells me. Henrietta Fore had a similar arrangement during the George W. Bush administration. There's a big caveat to all this though: Marocco has a very tumultuous track record, which includes getting shuttled between different federal agencies during the first Trump administration, instigating a staff dissent memo, and ultimately being placed on administrative leave.
Not to mention reportedly finding himself (and his wife, a fellow USAID alum) inside the U.S. Capital during the Jan. 6 riot. Long story short, the USAID administrator requires Senate confirmation, and many sources seriously doubt Marocco could pass that test.
ICYMI: Who will shape US aid policy under Trump? (Pro)
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WHO support amid criticism
The World Health Organization received widespread support after Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the agency. Even some of WHO’s critics argued for reform over abandonment, my colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo tells me.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, called the withdrawal a “mistake” in a STAT op-ed, echoing health experts’ warnings that it would weaken WHO and undermine U.S. safety. However, Jha didn’t shy away from critiquing WHO, sparking a sharp rebuttal from Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s interim director of Epidemic and Pandemic Threat Management.
Jha supported former senator — now secretary of state — Marco Rubio’s criticism of WHO’s handling of COVID-19, citing delays in acknowledging airborne transmission and a lack of criticism toward China’s response while being quick to criticize the U.S.
Van Kerkhove pushed back, labeling Jha’s remarks as riddled with “inaccuracies, omissions, and misrepresentations.” She emphasized that evidence evolves rapidly during novel outbreaks and defended WHO’s repeated calls for transparency from China, denying allegations of bias against the U.S.
The debate over WHO’s pandemic response reflects broader tensions, including its controversial delay in recognizing COVID-19 as airborne. Former WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan later admitted they should have made that acknowledgment “much earlier.”
It would be a crime not to
The Inter-American Development Bank is tackling a surprising priority for a development bank: organized crime. Its new Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development unites 18 Latin American and Caribbean nations to address the staggering costs of crime, estimated at 3.4% of the region’s gross domestic product, my colleague Adva Saldinger writes.
With organized crime driving half the region’s homicides and violence spilling across borders, IDB President Ilan Goldfajn says only a regional approach can make a dent. The alliance will focus on protecting vulnerable populations, strengthening justice institutions, and cutting off illicit financial flows.
IDB is ramping up funding, with a $1 billion pipeline for 2025 and recent projects such as a $150 million investment in Ecuador to boost criminal investigations and security.
Read: IDB-led initiative tackles organized crime in Latin America, Caribbean
In other news
UNICEF reported that extreme weather disrupted education for 242 million students globally last year. [Al Jazeera]
WHO announced that Georgia has officially been certified as malaria-free after nearly a century-long fight, joining 45 countries and one territory with this status. [UN News]
In a historic milestone, solar power outpaced coal as an electricity source in the European Union for the first time in 2024, according to a report by a climate think tank. [DW]
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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.
