Additional Context: This information was cited by Human Rights Watch, or HRW, from a survey conducted by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa, or CIPESA published in August 2025. According to CIPESA, the percentage of U.S. funding was between 20% and 60% of the annual budgets of the organizations surveyed. HRW notes that the funding to digital rights groups supported the research, development, implementation, and maintenance of technologies that counter censorship and surveillance. The termination of such programs thus jeopardizes the safety of human rights defenders among others, degrading the tools that guarantee security in an online space.

Devex Researcher Note: Many such groups were supported by USAID, State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor (DRL), and the U.S. Agency for Global Media's Open Technology Fund, or OTF, among others. Support for the OTF was terminated in March 2025 and, although a court order obligated the U.S. government to pay out the funds that had already been promised to organizations, future support remains uncertain.

Source: Human Rights Watch