From camps to crops: US aid cuts reshape refugee life in Thailand
After decades of confinement to border camps, a small number of Burmese refugees are now working legally in Thailand. The Aid Report examines how U.S. aid cuts helped trigger the policy shift — and whether labor can supplement aid without exposing refugees to greater risk.
Photo Credit: Rebecca L. Root / Devex
U.S. funding cuts threaten long-term global food security [NYT] ↳
The dismantling of USAID has shuttered agricultural research labs and destabilized international crop science, with consequences likely to emerge decades from now. Scientists warn today’s cuts could fuel future food shortages and price spikes.
One year post-USAID, global health funding stuck in limbo [Think Global Health] ↳
Essential health efforts have been hobbled in many low- and middle-income nations, leaving care gaps and forcing governments to explore new funding strategies, reports Think Global Health.
How Cameroon fought to save its malaria program after the U.S. cut critical funding [NYT] ↳
After U.S. aid cuts disrupted malaria treatment in northern Cameroon, clinics ran short of lifesaving drugs and unpaid health workers struggled to fill the gaps. The New York Times investigates how quickly progress against malaria can unravel when supply chains and frontline care are broken.
What I saw at a maternity ward in Kenya after the U.S. cut off food and foreign aid [ProPublica] ↳
Sharp cuts to U.S. foreign aid for the World Food Programme have left refugees at the Kakuma camp in Kenya severely malnourished, with pregnant women facing life-threatening complications, reports ProPublica. Many families must choose between returning to starvation outside the hospital or staying indefinitely to access basic meals.
‘I can’t just leave them’: Kenya’s health workers carry on without pay
Nearly a year after the U.S. cut much of its health funding to Kenya, unpaid community health workers still underpin HIV and mental health care. A new U.S.-Kenya health deal has been signed, but its impact has yet to reach the front lines.
Photo Credit: © David Snyder / ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US aid cuts yank Nepal’s girls out of school and into child marriage
A short-lived U.S.-funded education program brought teachers to villages where girls had never been allowed to attend school. Its abrupt end has left many of those girls without a path back to learning — and under increased pressure to marry.
Photo Credit: Sunita Neupane / Devex
The fight to beat neglected tropical diseases was going well. 2025 could change that [NPR] ↳
NPR reports that years of progress against neglected tropical diseases — driven largely by U.S.-backed mass drug distribution and surveillance programs — are now at risk as funding cuts disrupt treatment campaigns.
Anti-rights groups move to reshape global health after U.S. aid cuts [The Guardian] ↳
With USAID programs gutted, conservative groups are advancing new aid frameworks that sideline sexual and reproductive health. Advocates warn this shift could deepen contraceptive shortages and raise the risk of unsafe abortions, The Guardian reports.
The summer of starvation: Amid Trump’s foreign aid Cuts, a mother struggles to keep her sons alive [ProPublica] ↳
ProPublica investigates impacts after the Trump administration cut off food from the third-largest refugee camp in the world. Thousands of families faced impossible choices as their children starved. Here, the authors follow the story of Rose Natabo, who works tirelessly to keep her children alive even amid deep food insecurity caused by the cuts.
Inside the Trump administration’s man-made hunger crisis ↳
ProPublica traces how abrupt U.S. policy decisions, including aid freezes and program terminations, triggered food shortages across fragile regions, compounding conflict and displacement. Internal documents and interviews show the crisis was widely anticipated but allowed to unfold anyway.
Trafficked, exploited, married off: Rohingya children’s lives crushed by foreign aid cuts ↳
Reductions to humanitarian aid in Rohingya refugee camps have stripped away protection services, leaving children more vulnerable to trafficking, forced labor, and early marriage, reports the AP.
Trump officials celebrated with cake after slashing aid. Then people died of cholera. ↳
ProPublica reveals how U.S. officials marked major aid cuts even as warnings mounted about disease outbreaks. In the weeks that followed, cholera spread in vulnerable communities, underscoring the deadly consequences of dismantling public health systems mid-crisis.
‘Nobody wants to take responsibility for the tragedy that’s going on here’ ↳
Bill Gates tells Politico that projected increases in child mortality are closely tied to recent foreign aid cuts by the U.S. and other wealthy countries, following decades of steady progress. While the Trump administration disputes the link, Gates argues the scale and speed of the cuts have had deadly consequences.
The painful, seismic shift in humanitarian aid—and what’s next [Carnegie Endowment for International Peace] ↳
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that the abrupt reduction in U.S. humanitarian aid has left major gaps in global emergency response systems and strained the ability of the United Nations and partner organizations to meet rising humanitarian needs. The funding shock presents both a crisis and a potential inflection point for reforming the international humanitarian system.
Youth & vulnerable groups are losing critical prevention systems
Kenya’s DREAMS program — which kept 66,000 girls HIV-free over three years — shut down. In South Africa, U.S.-funded drop-in centers for key populations closed, cutting off PrEP, harm-reduction, methadone programs, and HIV commodities.
Source: Physicians for Human Rights, Ritshidze
Rape survivors have lost access to HIV prevention
Health facilities in DRC and Ethiopia ran out of PEP kits, a short-term emergency treatment that must be started within 72 hours of a potential exposure. This leaves survivors of sexual violence without the emergency medication needed to prevent HIV infection.
Source: Physicians for Human Rights
HIV infections in babies are rising
Clinicians in Kenya report the return of new HIV infections in newborns — something virtually eliminated under U.S.-supported maternal prevention. In Uganda, one clinic saw 25% of HIV-positive pregnant women give birth to HIV-infected infants after ARV stockouts and rationing.
Source: Physicians for Human Rights
After USAID exit, China hasn't moved to fill Asia’s funding gap
Despite expectations that Beijing would expand its influence after USAID’s withdrawal, China has shown little interest in taking over U.S.-funded programs, leaving a development divide across Southeast and South Asia.
Photo Credit: Chainwit / CC BY-SA
US retreat stalls Botswana’s HIV prevention outreach
A simple, one-time procedure that sharply lowers HIV risk has long been a quiet success story in Botswana — until U.S. funding cuts halted the community outreach behind it.
Photo Credit: Ricardo Franco / CDC / CC BY

