A key USAID-funded early warning system for predicting famine that is widely used in the humanitarian sector has gone offline as of Thursday, joining other tools and programs that are unable to operate as the Trump administration freezes U.S. foreign aid for 90 days.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, is funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, or BHA. It is a critical and leading source of up-to-date data to predict and track food insecurity in nearly 30 countries in Africa, Central America, and Asia.
The website contains a message stating that its tools — including its learning platform, data warehouse, and data explorer — are “currently unavailable,” and emails to staff are inactive. Devex’s attempts to reach the service were met with a one-line automated response that says: “FEWS NET is not accepting emails at the moment.”