The dismantling of USAID has stripped Nepal of maternal nutrition programs, birthing center supplies, and community health workers, leaving pregnant women without prenatal care and driving child wasting in one province from 7.4% to 12.3%, the AP reports.

The dismantling of USAID — along with parallel cuts by European donors that have driven Western assistance to its lowest level since 2016 — has left fragile states without a development model, writes Eghosa E. Osaghae, Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. 

Hospital admissions for severe malnutrition in Somali displacement camps have surged 83% over last year, with 47% of children in Baidoa's camps found malnourished and more than 100 children dying at Doctors Without Borders' hospital there in the first half of 2026, the Washington Post reports. The Trump administration has cut virtually all aid to Somalia.

ProPublica reports that as the Trump administration terminates traditional aid programs deemed "not aligned with American interests," the State Department is redirecting congressionally mandated foreign aid dollars toward ideological causes, including a proposed $1 million grant to study crime against white Afrikaners and $5 million for a British free-speech group.

Brookings articulates how the Trump administration's America First Global Health Strategy is replacing PEPFAR's humanitarian model with bilateral compacts that tie U.S. support to unaffordable domestic spending hikes, national health data access, and mineral agreements. The shift compounds damage already done by U.S. funding disruptions.

Afghanistan heads into winter with 14 million people facing acute hunger as donor retrenchment led by U.S. aid cuts leaves the agency $500 million short and child wasting at critical levels. This Washington Post opinion piece argues the American withdrawal from humanitarian funding has removed the donor of last resort that once kept crises like this one contained.

Twelve Afghan provinces have reached critical levels of child malnutrition as the World Food Programme suspends food distributions due to lack of funding. The Washington Post reports that dwindling assistance since 2022 has been exacerbated by the Trump administration's sweeping foreign aid cuts.

Dropping by 25% since 2024, U.S. HIV/AIDS funding has fallen by $2.1 billion and is now routing through government-to-government agreements that require recipient countries to put up their own money. The Economist reports that thirty-four countries have signed on, while Ghana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are refusing over what they call unreasonable demands.

The State Department has released nearly $2 billion in health and humanitarian funding through multilateral agencies, a partial reversal of the cuts that followed USAID's dismantling. The New York Times reports the awards carry unusual political conditions.

At the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian advocates said they anticipated the dramatic drop in donor funding for HIV years in advance. The Guardian reports that speakers urged other countries to pursue "health sovereignty" through measures like domestic drug production and earmarked taxes.

Experts at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro warn that lenacapavir will not reach the people who need it most, The Guardian reports. USAID once provided 73% of donor-funded HIV prevention resources globally, and its dismantling has gutted the peer outreach and harm reduction networks that connect high-risk populations to those services.

A survey of nearly 3,800 former USAID staff finds that only 40% have found full-time work since the agency's dismantling while 81% report stress-related physical symptoms such as headaches and panic attacks, Government Executive reports.

The Economist finds that the death toll following USAID's closure has been lower than early projections warned, but credits that largely to the fact that the cuts to U.S. foreign assistance landed more modestly than Elon Musk and DOGE had planned.

Citing polling showing 54% of Americans favor foreign aid and eight in 10 prefer reform over elimination, David Beasley and Ben Cardin argue the sector must acknowledge its shortcomings, better connect aid to U.S. interests, and rebuild bipartisan support.

Staffing shortages, IT problems, and delayed guidance hampered the State Department's rushed takeover of 1,504 surviving USAID awards, according to a new Office of Inspector General report.

The abrupt shutdown of USAID left an irrigation upgrade unfinished in the Kenyan village of Kimorigo, contributing to the area's worst flooding in at least a decade and a surge in illness, according to a Bloomberg investigation.

The dismantling of USAID last year continues to affect the federal response to a record number of cyclosporiasis infections, following the loss of nearly $30 million for the CDC's Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria.

After the dismantling of USAID eliminated an estimated 35,000 in Nepal, around 100 LGBTQ+ former aid workers who once ran HIV outreach programs have turned to sex work to survive, walking the same highways where they previously distributed condoms and administered tests, the AP reports.

Writing for the Center for Global Development, former chief economists of the U.S. and U.K. aid agencies Rachel Glennerster and Dean Karlan argue that with U.S. and other donor budgets sharply reduced, remaining aid should be radically simplified — concentrating on a handful of rigorously proven, high-impact interventions.

The Brennan Center reports that the Trump administration has capped refugee admissions at a historic low. The administration has diverted humanitarian dollars from their purpose including refugee processing toward "self-deportations," leaving more than 100,000 approved and vetted refugees stranded abroad.