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A new era of U.S. aid takes shape against backdrop of disruption

Many were stunned at the rapid dismantlement of the U.S. government’s longstanding aid architecture in the early days of the foreign assistance review, while others were quick to look forward. Reimagining the future of foreign aid became a ubiquitous title of events, symposiums, and consulting projects, even while programs were still closing down.

 Whatever one’s view of global power dynamics, a year and a half later the disruption has been accompanied by mounting reports of deteriorating conditions across a range of sectors. (Just in the past two weeks, journalists and researchers have published investigations into education in Malawi, rising HIV numbers in southern Africa, terrorism dynamics in Afghanistan, reproductive health in Kenya, and the return of a parasitic fly in the American South.)

While destruction happens quickly, rebuilding takes time. The State Department has reorganized to fulfill a new humanitarian mission and global health mandate, staffing up through contractor positions as part of its Trade Over Aid vision. The USDA has resumed issuing funding solicitations, the State Department has announced major humanitarian grants to selected recipients, America First Global Health agreements continue to be signed, and the administration's new refugee policy has become more firmly established.

But the context in which this new architecture is emerging is not the same one that existed before the aid cuts. Amid program closures, downsized organizations, an exodus of experienced personnel, and evolving humanitarian needs, the effects of the next phase of U.S. assistance will unfold within systems that have already been fundamentally reshaped by the past 18 months.

What we’re reading:

• US–Central African Republic deportation agreement escalates attack on immigrants and puts lives at risk [Just Security]

• Trump's revamped Food for Peace bypasses the countries closest to famine [CFR]

• Post-U.S. international democracy support: aspiration in search of substance [Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]

• US State Dept announces first of a series of major humanitarian awards [Devex]

• US funnels $1B to UNICEF and WFP in latest humanitarian funding push [Devex]

• Is the US still ‘the largest aid provider by far’? It depends [Devex]

The impact of the U.S. retreat from its traditional model of aid is visible in the global capacity to respond to the Ebola outbreak, funding shortfalls at agencies like the World Food Programme, and diminished reach of community level  interventions. Less visible, however, is the damage to the data systems that underpin global health and development decision-making.

Shortly after the U.S. foreign aid freeze, the Institute for Development Impact launched the DECFinder, an effort to preserve access to the Development Experience Clearinghouse, or DEC. Formerly stored on USAID’s website, the DEC, contained over 60 years of development evaluations, reports, and other knowledge products created through U.S. foreign assistance funding. When USAID's website went offline following the agency's dismantling, the archive disappeared with it, prompting external actors to step in and recover the material (As of June 2026, the USAID.gov website still depicts a February 2025 message to all staff about the agency’s closure. There is still no public access to the official DEC.)

Former U.S. government employees and development practitioners have also mobilized to recover what has been lost. The USAID Knowledge Rescue team received $100,000 from private donors and the Rockefeller Foundation to “ensure that staff knowledge and more than 250,000 digital files, removed from the public domain, are preserved and available to inform future work.” The Democracy, Governance and Rights Hub was launched in early summer 2025 to preserve the sector’s products and continue information sharing efforts. The Humanitarian Archive Emergency Coalition launched a survey in April 2026 with funding from Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome Trust to begin its archival process of at-risk humanitarian and health data.

As the AidData team argues, the current disruptions present an opportunity to rethink development data — its purpose, governance, and  funding. Yet without sustained investment in these systems, the global development community risks losing the evidence base that demonstrates the value of its work. As these systems go offline, policymakers and implementers alike will be operating with diminished efficiency, opening up significant risks to tracking, predicting and improving lifesaving aid. Perhaps most importantly, without reliable data, it will be difficult to assess the effectiveness of emerging aid models, including the America First Global Health Agreements, or to fully understand the long-term consequences of USAID's dismantling.

What we’re reading:

• Restoring the lost records of U.S. global health [Think Global Health]

• Global wildfire report for 2025 notes drop in area burned, as USAID cuts threaten future reports [Wildfire Today]

• EM-DAT: Trump aid cuts could close database storing ‘world’s memory of disasters’ [Carbon Brief]

• Logistical hurdles pile up for responders racing to contain Ebola [Devex]

• Rubio slams USAID, refutes numbers of children dead from cuts [Devex]

Ebola outbreak collides with U.S. global health retreat

As the global health community convened in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, or WHA, a new outbreak of Ebola was declared a public health emergency of international concern. Caused by the Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved vaccine or treatment, the outbreak has spread across northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, though at least two cases have been identified in Uganda. As of May 20, there have been more than 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected Ebola deaths, with numbers expected to continue to rapidly rise.

The U.S., while noticeably absent at WHA due to its withdrawal from the World Health Organization last year, imposed travel restrictions on people arriving from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan in an effort to limit the disease’s spread. One global health expert has described the travel ban as “public health theater” at a time when abrupt foreign aid cuts decimated surveillance and response capacity in these countries. Beyond aid cuts, the NIH laboratory that focused on Ebola and other deadly pathogens — whose scientists would once have raced to develop vaccines and treatments during an outbreak — was shuttered early last year.

The current epidemic has underscored how global health security work continues to change as the U.S. pulls back. USAID once helped support frontline community health workers and critical response logistics, including transporting viral samples from remote areas to centralized labs. Simultaneously, the CDC would analyze samples and lend technical expertise to local scientists. But this time, the U.S. government reportedly learned of the epidemic a day before the public health emergency was declared. 

What we’re reading:

• Ebola outbreak in DRC draws attention to Trump administration's dismantling of USAID[NPR]

• Ebola outbreak a 'wake-up call' to the danger of US and UK aid cuts [The Independent]

• There is a solution to the global health care crisis[Foreign Policy]

• Trump administration cuts CDC's key role in global program to stop HIV [Science]

• Africa outbreaks expose ‘erosion of trust’ in health systems [Devex]

Peace at the brink

In early 2025, the Trump administration ordered the closure of the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, which oversaw the implementation of the Global Fragility Act. USAID’s Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization — including the Office of Transition Initiatives, which used windows of opportunity to build peace and democracy in countries experiencing political change — was also shuttered. Meanwhile, the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally funded peacebuilding body, remains locked in a legal battle, its offices already repurposed.

But what has this meant for the communities that once benefited from these programs? In January 2025, an early warning system for violence in Nigeria that would alert local security forces of potential attacks was terminated. A few months later, a massacre took place, killing 200 people and forcing 4,000 to flee — the exact type of violence that the program had been built to deter. In Mozambique, U.S. foreign assistance helped to stabilize gas-rich northern areas, countering an ongoing ISIS insurgency. Investments continue, but with no stabilization work to de-risk them. From our own reporting, we’ve found that several former participants in a USAID-funded youth program in Colombia have entered illicit economies in rural areas as a right-wing paramilitary group has attempted to fill the void left behind.

The legislation that guides U.S. foreign assistance for peace and security, including the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, and the Global Fragility Act of 2019 still exist. But many of the programs, people, and implementation mechanisms associated with these efforts have been terminated or disrupted.

What we’re reading:

• Disturbing the peace: US aid cuts endanger conflict prevention efforts [Devex]

• Trump officials threaten UN budget cuts as US pushes 'trade over aid' agenda [The Guardian]

• How US equipment ended up in the hands of Iran's allies in Yemen as USAID was disbanded [CNN]

• Inside the effort to finance Ukraine’s development at war [Devex]

Competing narratives reflect tension in global HIV response

The U.S. Department of State has released new data from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — the first comprehensive update in over a year. The figures offer the clearest picture yet of how the cuts to U.S. foreign assistance have shaped the global HIV response.

While the State Department highlighted the program’s overall reach, public health experts warn the key data points obscure deeper losses. As former acting chief of staff for PEPFAR Jirair Ratevosian wrote: “When you look underneath the topline numbers, the trends shift quickly. HIV testing declined substantially over the year. Diagnoses fell across settings, with the steepest drops in community-based programs.” Between 2024 and 2025, nearly 75,000 fewer people began treatment for HIV — a 16% drop.

The data is already fueling debate in Washington, but tensions are also rising abroad. Countries including Zambia and Zimbabwe are pushing back on new “America First” bilateral health agreements, with disagreements cited in the resignation of PEPFAR’s chief scientist. The U.S. will once again skip next month’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, calling into question what the future of global cooperation to address this epidemic will look like.

What we’re reading:

• Aid cuts and a failed deal: Zimbabwe’s frontline health care under strain [Devex]

• Expert quits US HIV role, rebukes Trump global health approach [Reuters]

• PEPFAR data shows drops in HIV prevention as US claims success [Devex]

• What does PEPFAR's future look like in the Trump administration? [NPR]

• Zambia: Is the US trading HIV treatment for resources? [DW]

Is foreign assistance still a part of U.S. soft power?

While the world — or at least the World Bank — comes together in Washington, D.C. for this year’s Spring Meetings, many are still processing the shift in the global development system that began in early 2025. Multilateral institutions continue to convene political leaders, but there is no arguing that the rupture in the world order sets the backdrop to many of the conversations. Significant cuts in aid flows from donor countries remain a critical point of tension.

In May 2025, while the world was coming to terms with the U.S. aid cuts, Joseph Nye, the academic who developed the theory behind soft power, died. He defined it as "the ability to obtain preferred outcomes by attraction rather than coercion or payment," a philosophy that long guided U.S. foreign assistance. For decades, Democrats and Republicans largely agreed on its value. But in 2025, that consensus fractured, culminating in the termination of USAID and a broader narrative shift that humanitarians are still struggling to counter.

As the Trump Administration settles in, the contours of its U.S. foreign aid strategy are coming into focus: a proposed 30% foreign affairs spending cut, a pivot toward critical mineral supply chains, and a narrower approach to humanitarian assistance. Many experts warn the shifts could erode U.S. soft power, especially as it may open opportunities for China to expand its influence. Even as  some public diplomacy efforts are revived, the message is clear: foreign assistance is no longer a core tool for winning hearts and minds.

What we’re reading:

• In the Trump era, everybody's talking about 'soft power.' But ... what is it exactly? [NPR]

• Trump’s cuts have eviscerated once-bipartisan foreign aid programs [New York Times]

• Wealthy nations slashed development aid in 2025 for second year in row, debt group says [Reuters]

• Trump's budget request calls for 30% cut to foreign affairs spending [Devex]

• Minerals for aid: Are new US health deals ‘exploiting’ African countries? [Al Jazeera]

As war ensues, aid cuts still bite

Just over a month since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, war has widened across the region. With millions of people displaced in Iran and Lebanon, aid groups are increasingly focused on immediate humanitarian needs. Gulf states that long cast themselves as anchors of regional stability have not escaped the fallout. As the Council on Foreign Relations reported, Dubai’s International Humanitarian City, one of the world’s key disaster aid logistics hubs, has been slowed by Iranian missile fire. And with bottlenecks in the Strait of Hormuz, aid deliveries may be significantly delayed just as humanitarian organizations brace for refugee flows.

The consequences will reach much farther than the region. Already, energy and fertilizer supply chains have been disrupted. For humanitarian organizations, higher fuel prices mean higher costs to move supplies like food and medicine. From Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar, fragile economies — especially those already grappling with significant cuts to their aid programs — are particularly exposed to rising shipping and fuel costs. In East Africa, where aid cuts have already weakened famine prevention efforts, the wartime fertilizer disruptions and energy scarcity is expected to deepen food insecurity.

Reports indicate that the Trump Administration is requesting $200 billion for the war effort, raising concerns that U.S. funding priorities could tilt further toward military response, leaving an already weakened humanitarian response system under-resourced.  

What we’re reading:

• Aid groups crippled by foreign aid cuts plead for funds as Middle East humanitarian crisis grows[AP]

• What US spending on the war in Iran could fund instead[TIME]

• Beyond the battlefield: The global ripple effects of the Iran war [Devex]

• Under Trump, US humanitarian aid has become dangerously opaque [World Politics Review]

Women’s rights in the crossfire

Making good on their promise, the first week of the second Trump Administration brought executive orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion and “gender ideology” programming and initiatives. While many in the global development community had mistakenly believed women’s empowerment and gender-based violence prevention programming would continue as in the past, these programs were nearly universally terminated. Bipartisan legislation like the Women, Peace & Security Act was singled out as ‘woke’ and unceremoniously sidelined. And despite the fanfare of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, launched by Ivanka Trump in 2019, the second Trump Administration seems to have entirely disassociated from women’s empowerment.

Now, a year into Trump 2.0, world powers and international organizations battle for influence during a tense Commission on the Status of Women. Already, the U.S. has set forth a sweeping new set of restrictive funding policies, dramatically expanding the Mexico City Policy, which blocks U.S. federal funding to international nongovernmental organizations that provide or inform about abortion. The new rules surpass previous limits to include gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion, along with expansion to a new cadre of recipients — including U.N. agencies.

While the fight for women’s rights — and what can or should be included under it — plays out, the effects of the 2025 aid cuts are unfolding around the world. Lifesaving support programs for young girls at risk of HIV have been terminated in Kenya; behavior change work to save mother’s lives in Nepal has shuttered; and survivors of sexual violence in Honduras can no longer find safe spaces to recover. Political discourse aside, these stories show that women’s freedoms and lives have been caught in the crossfire of the aid cuts already.

What we’re reading:

• Three women, three countries and a global crisis [El Pais]

• Why supporting a shelter for women is now 'kind of radioactive' [NPR]

• In Nepal, US ends effort to help women make life-or-death choices [Devex]

• Life after DREAMS: Kenya’s girls navigate HIV risk without US support[Devex]

• How Trump’s new global gag rules will undermine US interests abroad [Just Security]

Life-saving aid questioned, cut

Before the foreign aid review was finalized in 2025, waivers were issued for emergency life-saving work. As Secretary of State Rubio’s initial memo explained, this was meant to include core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, and shelter, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs necessary to deliver such assistance. 

Though this process was marred with setbacks and confusion, waivers began to trickle down in the weeks after the stop-work order. Some of the organizations lucky enough to receive one had partial exemptions, some received waivers for one week, while others could continue their program for the full 90 days of the review period. In the chaos that followed, researchers predicted catastrophic numbers of lives lost. While some of these numbers have not played out as feared, the drawdown of sustained support for the activities of humanitarian organizations — including those of the World Food Programme and U.N. Refugee Agency — have meant that many lifesaving programs have, in fact, ended.

In the past week, the Trump administration has made clear that lifesaving aid would end for at least seven African countries. Even with a $2 billion commitment to the United Nations’ lead humanitarian agency, it appears that emergency aid may continue to be stuck in limbo as the tensions across the U.S. government and the industry it disrupted continue to play out.

What we’re reading:

• The Trump Administration is ending aid that it says saves lives [The Atlantic]

• Afghans ‘desperate’ as aid cuts bring mass hunger crisis[Devex]

• ‘I fear for my daughter’s future’: Families in Zimbabwe struggle to survive a year after Trump’s aid cuts [The Independent]

• Post-USAID, Kenyans’ access to HIV and maternal medicine and contraceptives plunge [Health Policy Watch]

• How bad are Trump’s aid cuts now Congress is fighting back?[The Independent]

U.S. leadership on democracy and rights transformed

For decades after World War II, the U.S. invested heavily in democracy, rights, and governance — known as DRG — programs. But, in early 2025, the Trump administration cut an estimated 97% of USAID’s DRG portfolio. These disruptions have brought the end of election monitoring and outreach efforts, canceled support for independent media and labor unions, and terminated emergency protection for human rights defenders and civil society activists. (Though, it seems the U.S. isn’t the only donor pulling back its DRG assistance these days.)

At the same time, U.S. engagement on democracy and human rights has not completely halted. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor continues to operate, having lost less than half of its total programs in the initial funding freeze. But changes to its structure and redirection of its stated goals may affect the types of DRG work we see from the U.S. going forward. 

What we’re reading:

• Disarming the global free press [Columbia Journalism Review]

• How US foreign aid cuts put garment worker rights on a precipice [Financial Times]

• Who will stand up for human rights in 2026 – and how? [Just Security]

• The logical end point of ‘America First’ foreign aid [The Atlantic]

• A year after aid cuts, the image of American power shifts under Trump [The Washington Post]

One year on

When the Trump administration took office in January 2025, few predicted the scale of disruption that would ripple across the global development industry. Now, one year on, recent reporting has sought to take stock of what has been lost — and what risks still lie ahead. 

Many health programs remain in a state of funding limbo, forcing governments to explore new financing strategies even while research models estimate rising death and disease rates. Similarly, global emergency response systems have been significantly constrained. In its first test since the dismantling of USAID, delivery of relief assistance went to Cuba nearly three months after Hurricane Melissa made landfall. But, many continue to articulate that the funding shocks present both a crisis and a potential inflection point for reforming the international humanitarian system.

Notably, certain predictions have not come to pass. In the wake of the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign aid cuts, policy experts were quick to predict that China would use the moment to exert and expand its soft power, especially in its Asian backyard. But nearly a year after the dismantling of USAID, that prediction has not materialized, our own reporting finds.

What we’re reading:

• The painful, seismic shift in humanitarian aid—and what’s next [Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]

• One year post-USAID, global health funding stuck in limbo [Think Global Health]

• One year later: the effect of US ‘chainsaw’ on global health [Health Policy Watch]

• One year after USAID cuts, Jordan’s reliance on Washington is laid bare [The National]

• After USAID exit, China hasn't moved to fill Asia’s funding gap[Devex]

Hunger deepens

Recent reporting shows that U.S. aid cuts — particularly to the World Food Programme (WFP) — are rapidly deepening hunger across Africa and in fragile states. Funding shortfalls have forced WFP to slash rations, close nutrition programs, and turn away the vast majority of people in need. Other humanitarian actors have also reduced services as broader funding dried up, with children, refugees, and women bearing the brunt as safety nets collapse.

In Kenya, reductions in food assistance have coincided with rising child malnutrition and preventable deaths as safety nets collapse amid drought and high food prices. In Malawi, refugees report skipping meals and selling basic necessities as distributions shrink. Across multiple countries, WFP now says it can reach only a small fraction of hungry people due to lack of funds and is preparing to lay off up to 30% of its staff by 2026, reducing capacity even where aid still exists. 

What we’re reading:

• Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis — ProPublica
  

• U.S. aid cuts leave refugees in Malawi desperate and hungry — Devex
  

• ‘We’re turning away 9 out of 10 hungry people’: The cost of shrinking aid — Devex

• Exclusive: WFP to cut up to 30% of staff amid aid shortfall — Devex

Food systems unravel

House Democrats are demanding answers after reports that U.S.-purchased food aid was left to spoil following the dismantling of USAID. In a letter to U.S. Department of State and USAID acting inspectors-general, Gabe Amo, a Democrat from Rhode Island and Gregory W. Meeks, a Democrat from New York, raised concerns that the Trump administration has not disclosed the scale of the losses, requesting more information about oversight, supply chain failures, and potential misuse of congressionally appropriated funds. 

What we’re reading

• The Trump administration’s flip-flop on treating malnourished children — Devex

• As US hunger rises, Trump administration’s efficiency goals cause massive food waste — The Conversation

• ‘No more food’ in northern Nigeria: US funding cuts bite for aid groups — Al Jazeera

• From Food Aid to Dog Chow? How Trump’s Cuts Hurt Kansas Farmers — The New York Times

• US aid cuts leave food for millions mouldering in storage — Reuters

Security vacuums widen

Recent coverage highlights that cuts to early-warning, peacebuilding, and stabilization programs are driving spikes in violence.

What we’re reading:

In Mozambique, an ISIS insurgency is newly energized as US cuts impact aid program — CNN

Trump cut Nigeria’s aid back in March. Now he wonders why it’s so violent — LA Times

The cuts that bleed: What happens when peace programs go dark — Devex

‘The cartels and clans are ecstatic’: How USAID cuts have emboldened Colombia’s narcos — The Telegraph

In Boko Haram’s birthplace, USAID’s collapse threatens a school for victims of extremism — AP