AMMAN, Jordan — Adnan Abu al-Haija is pacing in a clinic in Amman, Jordan, where half a dozen women are waiting for free gynecological and obstetrical consultations. After suddenly losing $2.25 million in funding provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development over the next two years, the Jordanian nonprofit Institute for Family Health, which provides free health care for women and children, also lost $600,000 of nearly $2 million from the United Nations Population Fund. The total loss, as of May, is 45% of the NGO’s 2025 budget, which means layoffs and fewer appointments available for patients in need. After 10 years of operations, that’s a blow not just to patients but to their trust in the organization.
“Unlike many international NGOs that can close their premises, we can’t do that,” he said. “We are here. We are blamed because [patients] know us.”
The Institute for Family Health is one of dozens of Jordanian organizations that are facing the consequences of the recent cuts to U.S. foreign aid, especially after decades of reliance on significant funding and unusual success with localization, which, until January this year, was USAID’s primary rallying cry. After years of expanding its recruitment and empowerment of local staff and its funding of local NGOs, the U.S. government’s sudden dismantling of its aid agency has left the Jordanian aid sector reeling.
About the author
Clothilde Goujard
Clothilde Goujard is a journalist based in Jordan, where she reports on humanitarian issues, regional and national politics, the environment, and technology. She previously covered Europe’s regulation of online platforms and artificial intelligence as a senior reporter with POLITICO in Brussels, Belgium. Prior to that, she worked for several years in Canada as a video journalist for Agence France-Presse and CBC.
