Latest news with #USAid-funded
The Guardian
05-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Australian foreign aid workers fear ‘deaths and suffering' will result from Trump's halt to USAid
Australian overseas aid programs could shut, causing 'unnecessary deaths and suffering', in the fallout from the Trump administration's decision to freeze foreign aid. Workers have described 'chaos' and 'total panic' as they try to work out what the policy means. The peak body for overseas aid organisations said without intervention, the consequences of the move 'will be catastrophic'. The United States provides about US$68bn in foreign aid a year, more than 40% of global humanitarian funding. Most of it is managed by the US Agency for International Development (USAid). Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Under president Donald Trump's orders – one of dozens he signed after being re-elected to the White House – the funding dried up for an initial period of 90 days, with some exceptions for emergency food aid, and military funding for Israel and Egypt. USAid staff were issued 'stop work' directives, and banned from discussing the situation without approval. Funded organisations were also ordered to stop work on all contracts, grants, agreements and programs. Elon Musk, who now runs the US government's 'department of government efficiency' (Doge), said the government was working to shut down USAid altogether with Trump's approval. On Tuesday, the administration confirmed it would shrink USAid and merge it with the state department. A range of Australian projects have USAid funding. Some organisations receive funds directly, while others work on projects that are jointly funded by the US and other partners and it is unclear what the stop work orders mean for them. There are concerns the US has left a chasm that could be filled by China. The Australian Council for International Development (Acfid) is the peak body for non-government organisations (NGOs) working in international development and humanitarian projects. Acfid interim chief executive officer, Matthew Maury, said funding for climate crisis work, food, health, infrastructure and disaster programs were at risk. 'This disruption will have wide-reaching impacts, interrupting critical life-saving work, including access to food for families, basic education for children, safety for women fleeing sexual and gender-based violence, and providing medications to children and others suffering from disease,' he said. 'Australian aid organisations with USAid-funded projects are at risk, as implementing partners rely on USAid funds for part of their operating costs. This could force organisations to shut down, with some already forced to let staff go.' Maury said NGOs were 'deeply concerned about how the immediate gaps will be addressed and the impact on communities that have relied on aid for essential services' including healthcare, education and basic necessities such as clean water. 'Without intervention, the consequences will be catastrophic. We are talking about unnecessary deaths and suffering. 'Initial data suggests that over AUD$256m worth of programs delivered by Acfid members and partners globally will be impacted, with $119m of funding impacted in the Pacific alone. These are programs at risk of not continuing,' he said. Trump has ordered efficiency reviews be done on all US-backed programs. He wrote in his executive order that the 'foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values'. Last week, the administration granted a waiver for 'life-saving humanitarian assistance' but it is not clear what that covers. Guardian Australia spoke to a range of organisations that declined to be named for fear of retaliation. Several major NGOs referred inquiries to their US headquarters. The Australian International Development Network (Aidn) warns the policy threatens lives, and is meeting with US foundations to work out where the most urgent needs lie. Mark Cubit co-founded Aidn, which describes itself as a collaboration of private sector individuals, philanthropists, organisations, donors, businesses and government. Cubit confirmed people and organisations will not speak out for fear of losing funding altogether, but said Aidn does not rely on USAid funding. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'Organisations who received a sudden communication that everything must stop are left dealing with the implications of that – initially having to tell their staff,' he said. 'The second obvious effect is on the beneficiaries. 'If it's child literacy programs that's unfortunate. If it's the provision of tuberculosis medication it's life threatening.' Cubit said Australian charities would not be able to pick up the slack without more funding from external parties. He said he was not optimistic the Australian government would increase its foreign aid to help. 'Australia is one of the stingiest aid funders, so it will be up to the private sector and China to pick up the slack,' he said. 'China will bring issues, obviously.' A spokesperson for the foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the decision was a matter for the US administration and that Australia's development program was 'focused on being a partner of choice for our neighbours'. The Australian founder of the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, Michael Brosowski, who's organisation rescues victims from slavery and human trafficking in Vietnam, said only 10% of their funding came from the US, so they would have to scale back but were not at risk of closing. 'It's a pause, and we don't know what will happen next,' he said. 'Part of the disappointment with this is that the US government has absolutely stood out as the world's leader in anti-trafficking, and I hope they don't lose that now. 'It's not clear if anyone else can step up to take the place of the US.' An aid insider in Myanmar who has worked for Australia said it was 'total chaos' there when anyone who received US funding got a letter demanding they cease all activity. He said programs and projects with funding from the US and Australia were struggling to work out what they could do. 'Even if you think you can continue 60% of your activities, the fear is that will also be contrary to the order, so that makes it incredibly uncertain,' he said. The Australian head of a south-east Asian organisation said people were 'absolutely panicking' but had been told not to speak publicly. 'People are terrified they're being monitored,' he said. 'It feels like an ideological attack.' He said he imagined regional governments would be on the phone to China, to fill the void and challenge America's leadership in the region. 'People are really angry … it's going to be really hard to trust America again,' he said.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Ukraine reels from ‘worst-case scenario' suspension of US foreign aid
Ukraine is reeling from the shock decision by the Trump administration to pause all US foreign aid programmes immediately, as a variety of projects in the country – from military veteran rehabilitation programmes to independent media and anti-corruption initiatives – have effectively been stopped overnight. It was seen as inevitable that the incoming administration would overhaul USAid, the US development agency, but there was an expectation that spending on Ukraine, or at least some of the most critical programmes, would be subject to a waiver – or there would at least be a winding-down period. Instead, a 'stop-work' order issued last Friday has left hundreds of projects without funding, initially for a 90-day review period. Attempts by the Kyiv USAid office to save funding for some of the most important programmes have reportedly been rebuffed in Washington. 'They requested a waiver for some of the things they considered critical but didn't get it,' said a source familiar with discussions over the future of USAid in Ukraine. 'It's clear that the new administration wants to destroy what was there before and build something completely new.' The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his government would prioritise the most important USAid-funded programmes and try to cover them with alternative funding solutions. 'There are programmes like those for prosthetic limbs, or those on special rehabilitation, which obviously can't just be ended abruptly. There will be a prioritisation,' said Zelenskyy's adviser Mykhailo Podolyak in an interview on Wednesday. Military aid and direct budgetary assistance to Ukraine have not so far been affected, but USAid had sent more than $7.6bn (£6.11bn) in humanitarian and development aid since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 and backed a remarkable range of projects across many sectors. 'This was the worst-case scenario,' said George Chewning, the executive director of US-Ukraine Veterans Bridge, an organisation devoted to fostering links between military veterans in the two countries. He said several partner organisations in Ukraine had suddenly found out their projects would no longer be continued. One, Veteran Hub, said it was closing a telephone hotline that had provided support and counselling to traumatised veterans. 'A lot of people thought there might be a thorough review and were prepared to justify their work and their projects but there certainly wasn't an expectation that the funding would be halted,' said Chewning. For veterans' organisations, the cuts could not have come at a worse time, said Chewning, as Donald Trump's desire to negotiate an end to the war could result in hundreds of thousands of newly demobilised veterans needing to re-integrate into society. 'All our partners are now scrambling for additional funding, which was not easy to come by in the first place,' he said. USAid also handled a large number of regional humanitarian aid projects, many of which were left pondering how to fill the newly created gaps, and without any idea what would remain after the three-month review period. 'It just impacts our morale … Do we wait for their continuation? Do we redirect these projects to other agencies? We don't really know what to do,' said Vitalii Lukov, the deputy mayor of the southern city of Mykolaiv, which has been reliant on international aid since being severely damaged in the early months of the war. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion 'USAid was the quickest to provide us with diesel generators and the energy efficiency projects are almost finished. But what will we do if Russia attacks our energy again tomorrow?' Lukov asked. The US development agency was also a supporter of many of Ukraine's independent media outlets. Bohdan Lohvynenko, the founder of the Ukraïner online news portal, said more than 80% of the site's funding came from the US, and the outlet was now in serious trouble. 'There is no viable advertising market for war reporting, leaving us with community support or a paywall model,' he said. However, raising money in this way during wartime was very difficult, he said, with most citizens preferring to use their money to support the military. 'Some [media outlets] will survive but many will not. Already a lot of people are losing their jobs,' said Katerina Sergatskova, a co-founder of the 2042 foundation, which provides support and training to Ukrainian journalists. 'If places have a cash reserve they may be able to survive for the next three months,' she said, until it became clear which USAid projects would be continued. The stop-work order meant that projects were abruptly ended with almost no warning. Oleh Velhan was one of thousands of Ukrainians to receive an email earlier this week informing him that his service agreement would be suspended, starting from Wednesday and 'until further notice'. Velhan worked for a company that provided services to an organisation working in the healthcare sector. The suspension was in order to 'assess the effectiveness of programs and their compliance with United States foreign policy', said the email. A few minutes after receiving the message, Velhan found he was locked out of his work email account. 'I felt frustrated and angry. All the projects I had been working on are gone. I've been notified that the contract might be renewed … but the uncertainty is killing me,' he said.
