President Donald Trump’s budget proposes eliminating funding for development assistance, according to a State Department budget document obtained by Devex on Monday.
All development assistance funding is cut in the proposed budget, with significant cuts to global health programs carried out by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Bureau of Food Security, Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, and the Global Development Lab.
More money will be funneled through the Economic Support Fund and State Department global health programs, namely PEPFAR, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Europe and Eurasia, and East Asia and the Pacific are the regions that would be the hardest hit, with 57.4 percent and 41.1 percent cuts, respectively. The Western Hemisphere would see a 38.9 percent cut, while South and Central Asia funds would drop 27.7 percent. Africa, with a 13 percent cut and the Near East with a 7.2 percent cut, would see the the smallest cuts.
The overall foreign aid budget will be cut 30.8 percent, according to the document. A notable shift is that the budget proposal seems to point to a change in the way aid is delivered; many of the cuts come from USAID run programs, whereas, where there are increases, it goes to accounts controlled by the State Department.
Stay tuned to Devex for more news and analysis of what the Trump administration means for global development. Read more coverage here and subscribe to The Development Newswire.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
