A leaked dataset listing active and terminated U.S. State Department contracts and grants promised rare insight into where funding has been cut — but a Devex analysis shows the data is so riddled with inconsistencies and omissions that it’s nearly impossible to draw meaningful conclusions.
Among the 430 contracts listed as active, 108 of them also appear in the terminated contracts list. These “duplicate” entries represent an estimated $382.4 million in total contract value, $187.3 million in obligations to date, and $195.1 million in unobligated funds. It’s unclear whether these refer to separate disbursements under a single project or are simply duplicate records. Without additional documentation, it’s impossible to say — and any top-line analysis comes with a heavy asterisk.
The structure of the contracts dataset mirrors previously leaked USAID data, with a focus on logistics and commodity vendors. But the grant records, where most of the development and humanitarian work happens, are where the real complexity — and frustration — begins.
About the author
Raquel Alcega
Raquel Alcega leads the data research and analysis at Devex, providing advice to organizations on the latest funding and programmatic trends that shape the global development space. She also heads up the news business content strategy and designs internal knowledge management processes. Prior to joining Devex’s Barcelona office, she worked in business development in Washington, D.C., and as a researcher in Russia and Mexico.
