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The dismantling of USAID wiped away a slate of programs, but treatments for HIV/AIDS were generally spared — “generally” being the operative word, because the cuts didn’t spare everyone.
Also in today’s edition: MacKenzie Scott, Bill Gates, and the art of giving — big.
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Lifesaving logistics
It’s one thing to technically have access to medications treating HIV/AIDS — and it’s another to make sure that vulnerable populations are actually able to take them with the regularity needed.
That’s where Paul Ochieng comes in.
For nearly two decades, the 52-year-old community health worker would accompany orphans and vulnerable children to a center on the outskirts of Kenya’s Kisumu City to keep their HIV infections in check.
But the Trump administration’s sudden and sweeping foreign aid cuts left workers such as Ochieng — and the children they help — in limbo. He has received sporadic, unpredictable payments from the government, but those are far less than the regular stipend he relied on under PEPFAR, otherwise known as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Still, Ochieng heads out each morning to the 50 children assigned to him under the now-defunct program, determined not to let the disruption sever the relationships he has cultivated, Victoria Amunga writes for Devex.
“I don’t want them to be worried. I can’t just leave them,” he says. “They would come to me if they had any problems. They depended on me like their parents, that’s why I stayed.”
That’s not to say the U.S. — which played an outsized role in propping up Kenya’s health services — has abandoned the East African country. It signed a new bilateral health agreement with Kenya to restructure health financing and transition more responsibility to the Kenyan government.
That’s cold comfort to Ochieng and the tens of thousands of other health workers who’ve been left stranded by U.S. aid cuts — workers such as Grace Nekesa, who lost her job when her USAID-funded mental health wellness program closed.
“Life has become very difficult,” Nekesa says. “Sometimes I have problems, but I have nobody to talk to because the community saw us as their pillar, and now I can’t go back to cry to them.”
Read: ‘I can’t just leave them’ — Kenya’s health workers carry on without pay
+ This story is part of The Aid Report, a Gates Foundation-funded, editorially independent initiative to track and document the on-the-ground impacts of the U.S. aid cuts. We’ll be featuring The Aid Report in the Newswire this week. You can also go to https://www.theaidreport.us for more information.
A lesson in patience
Not everything looks bleak on the U.S. aid landscape. Funding for global education programs may return this year, but — not to sound like a broken record — “may” is the operative word.
Despite the rampant uncertainty over U.S. foreign assistance in 2026, education advocates remain hopeful, writes Devex contributing reporter Gabriella Jóźwiak.
There are a few reasons for that hope. Among them, according to Anna Roberts of the Basic Education Coalition, are job ads posted by the State Department for foreign aid staff, a better-than-expected 2026 appropriations bill from the House of Representatives, and the State Department’s appointment of a special envoy to oversee initiatives on the well-being of children in the U.S. and globally.
If any of the $922 million allocated to global education in fiscal year 2025 makes a comeback, it would be a big deal, because over 90% was axed, according to the Global Campaign for Education-US Executive Director Giulia McPherson.
U.S. global education funding for fiscal 2026 is still a mystery, but the House appropriations bill released in July set the Basic Education Fund at $737.6 million — a 20% cut compared to 2025, which many said was less severe than the sector anticipated.
McPherson says the Senate is likely to set funding recommendations slightly lower than the House, as is commonly the case. “At this moment, it’s a wait and see,” she says.
But wait and see doesn’t translate into wait and see nothing happen, according to Roberts of the Basic Education Coalition.
“We’ll rebuild,” she says. “It’s going to be slow, and it’s going to look different. But we will.”
Read: Will the US start funding global education again in 2026?
Scott goes south
Pinning your hopes on the Trump administration for aid funding is, well, a gamble. Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott seems to be a safer bet, though granted, the amounts of money we’re talking about are vastly different.
Still, Scott spends pretty lavishly when it comes to the common good. How lavishly, you ask?
Scott spent $7.2 billion in 2025, putting her almost on par with the Gates Foundation — and her giving focused on the global south faster than the rest, Devex data analyst Miguel Antonio Tamonan uncovered.
Scott, however, downplays what many would consider to be a vast sum. “A vanishingly tiny fraction” of global giving is how she referred to her philanthropic contributions in her blog.
Others would beg to disagree. Scott has already given away over $26 billion to more than 2,500 organizations in just six years, surpassing the lifetime donations of many donors who started way before her, including Michael Bloomberg, who has given $21.1 billion to date.
Also notable: There was a more than twelvefold increase in Scott’s support to nonprofits working in low- and middle-income countries, with 57 nonprofits working in LMICs making it to her list of grantees in 2025.
Read: How MacKenzie Scott quadrupled her philanthropic giving in 2025 (Pro)
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Gates goes big
Let’s not act as if the Gates Foundation is a slouch when it comes to giving. In the past five years, the Gates Foundation has doled out a total of $26.7 billion in aid, which rivals some of the biggest bilateral donors in terms of official development assistance.
With some of the world’s previously most generous donors pulling back on aid, Gates is taking the opposite route, doubling its funding to $200 billion for the next two decades, when it intends to sunset.
While we do not have the concrete numbers just yet, it was reported that Gates spent at least $8.7 billion in 2025 as a result.
Previously, we have covered who is being funded by Gates. This analysis by my colleague Alecsondra Kieren Si looks at where the money goes and what it supports.
Read: Where did the Gates Foundation spend its money? (Pro)
The bank job
It’s not just philanthropy that’s being eyed as a source of funding as the U.S. backs off from foreign assistance. Multilateral development banks such as the World Bank are also on everyone’s radar. But it’s not just a question of lending; it’s also a question of hiring — and here the picture is mixed.
Data from the Devex job board shows that the World Bank published 915 jobs from Jan. 1 to Oct. 1 of last year, a 31.2% decrease from the same period in 2024.
It’s a slowdown, to be sure — and given that the U.S. is the bank’s largest shareholder, uncertainty is the new normal. But the World Bank’s work and need for new talent continue. Job openings span different sectors, with the highest number of opportunities found in finance, ICT, and environmental sectors.
We explore everything you need to know about hiring at the bank, including what you can expect to earn based on region, the top countries where it’s hiring, and its highest-paid jobs since January 2025.
Read: A World Bank jobs guide — where it’s hiring, key sectors, and top roles (Career)
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In other news
The OECD has finalized a revised global tax agreement that excludes large U.S. multinationals from a landmark 15% minimum corporate tax, a move hailed by the Trump administration as a win but condemned by transparency advocates as a blow to efforts to curb tax avoidance. [The Guardian]
For the first time since the conflict began in 2023, U.N. partners have secured enough stock to meet the full caloric needs of Gaza’s population, but aid agencies warn that recent Israeli moves to suspend certain NGOs could jeopardize this progress. [UN News]
CEO move
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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.
