Scoop: UN Population Fund thought it prepared for the worst — it didn’t

Perhaps no one prepared better for the Trump administration’s assault on foreign aid than the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA. Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has stopped funding the agency, while Democratic presidents have restored it, forcing the agency to hunt for other sources of money. The scope of the Trump administration’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid has caught them off guard. The last time Trump was in the White House, he moved swiftly to end funding for the agency, which has long been the target of social conservatives, who have falsely accused it of supporting coercive abortion policies in China. He is expected to do the same now. But the freeze has done more to disrupt its operations because Trump permitted UNFPA to spend money that was already appropriated and in the pipeline, granting it some fiscal runway before the money ran out. No such luck this time around. That has placed several U.S.-funded projects in jeopardy, including a program that employs more than 1,700 female health workers — mostly midwives — in Afghanistan, a country with one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. Under the terms of the freeze, they will have to be let go. “We were prepared for a defunding as best as any agency could,” said Rachel Moynihan, a Washington-based UNFPA official. “We were defunded under the first Trump administration. To their credit, they honored every grant that the U.S. had signed with us.” So far, the Trump administration has yet to announce a formal decision on defunding UNFPA, as well as other U.N. agencies, but the pause has had a more crippling effect on its operations, stopping funded programs from being implemented. In the meantime, the Trump administration appears to be trying to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, shuttering its X — formerly Twitter — handle, placing top officials on leave, and moving its web page to a State Department server, suggesting plans to fold the world’s largest funder of humanitarian and development programs into Foggy Bottom. The move to halt U.S. relief funding comes several days after President Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in her confirmation hearing that U.N. agencies such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF, “make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous.” She also pledged to the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, to review UNFPA’s work before the administration decides whether to expand the Mexico City policy, which is also known as the global gag rule. The policy prohibits U.S. foreign assistance from going to any organization that “participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” “Yes, if confirmed, I am committed to doing a review, as I said across the U.N. programs, but specifically UNFPA,” Stefanik replied. It remains unclear whether Stefanik, who has yet to be confirmed, played any role in devising the funding freeze. Many senior positions with responsibility for overseeing foreign aid and U.N. relief operations, including the administrator of USAID, have been filled. A mid-level official in the office of foreign assistance — Peter Marocco – as well as a team tasked by Elon Musk with shrinking federal spending — are reportedly carrying out the freeze, as well as a purge of senior civil servants in USAID. The sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign aid has injected chaos and confusion into the activities of UNFPA and other U.N. agencies. U.N. officials say they are receiving conflicting, contradictory guidance from the U.S. in headquarters and the field. In practice, they say that a seemingly instruction — for instance, a stop work order — is highly complicated. “There are a lot of things that are contemplated with simple, simple words like work,” one U.N. official told Devex. “If we have supplies heading to a port can we not unload them? If so, who is on the hook for paying for them? If we can’t get those supplies on shelves, who then pays to destroy those medicines or commodities?” There are also unforeseen costs associated with freezing relief programs. Many countries legally require compensation for laid-off workers, complicating U.N. efforts to lay off workers. “It’s not legal to fire people everywhere,” the official said. “We’re really working in good faith to try to square these circles, which sometimes is not possible,” the official added. “At the same time, we’re trying to comply, obviously, but then immediately mitigate against what’s going to happen in the field.” Small charitable organizations that implement U.N. programs may not have the financial resources to meet payroll during a 3-month pause on funding. “For small NGOs, 90 days is like a death sentence,” the official said. U.N. lawyers, meanwhile, have been debating whether the U.S. stop-work order is even legal. Article 100 of the U.N. Charter states that the U.N. secretary-general and U.N. staff members “shall not seek or receive instructions from any government” and that U.N. member states, including the U.S., “undertakes to respect the exclusively international character” of the U.N. and does not “seek to influence” its decision-makers in carrying out their duties. But invoking international law is unlikely to hold much sway over an administration that takes pride in disrupting international norms. “It’s a mess,” the official said. “This is like Joseph Heller’s dream. This is like a Catch-22.” In 2023, the U.S. contributed more than $160 million to UNFPA, representing some 11% of its $1.45 billion budget. It included more than 29% of the agency’s $443 million for humanitarian operations, according to UNFPA. At the moment, UNFPA is seeking to obtain a waiver for its own humanitarian work. In the meantime, here is a list of programs that stand to be impacted by the freeze, according to UNFPA. • In Afghanistan, over 9 million beneficiaries will not receive services and over 1,700 female health workers will no longer be employed. • In Gaza, 50,000 pregnant women will lose critical care as UNFPA’s mobile health teams are forced to halt operations. These teams provide care through home and shelter visits, especially in the hardest-hit northern areas. • In Bangladesh, nearly 600,000 beneficiaries will be at risk of losing sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence prevention and response services. • In Ukraine, around 400,000 women and girls will be affected by cuts to psychosocial support, gender-based violence prevention and response services, safe spaces, and economic empowerment programs provided by 45 mobile teams and 21 safe spaces. • In Pakistan, 1.7 million people — including 1.2 million Afghan refugees — will lose the lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services provided by 62 health facilities. • In Yemen, more than 220,000 people displaced by conflict or natural disasters will lose access to lifesaving emergency relief deliveries of essential items. • In Sudan and its surrounding countries, thousands of displaced people will lose emergency sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based violence prevention and response services. Update, Feb. 3, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify UNFPA’s total budget.