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Dr. Russell Moul
Dr. Russell Moul
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Russell is a Science Writer with IFLScience and has a PhD in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology.
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Maddy Chapman
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Proposed cuts to USAID would have dramatic and lasting impacts on the lives of people across the world, but they would also destabilize the global humanitarian development and aid sector.
Image credit: People/Shutterstock.com
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According to the influential medical journal, The Lancet, President Trump’s decision to cut the majority of US funding for foreign humanitarian aid could result in over 14 million additional deaths by 2030. Many of those at risk of excess premature deaths would be children, the report warns.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. Through it, the US has maintained a role as the leading government donor to humanitarian responses, development aid, and multilateral development banks.
Its contributions have been crucial over the last two decades where it has helped provide antiretroviral drugs for millions of people living with HIV in places like sub-Saharan Africa; it has supported local agricultural efforts in countries like Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Honduras as part of wider program to target the root causes of hunger and poverty across the world; it has offered disaster relief following disasters like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the typhoons in Haiyan, in the Philippines, and after the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa in 2014. These are just a tiny portion of the many situations where USAID has made a vital difference to people’s lives.
However, in March this year, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, announced a cut of over 80 percent of USAID programs, taking issue with what it regards as wasteful spending. These cuts, which were condemned by humanitarian organizations across the world, were overseen by Elon Musk as part of the Department of Government Efficiency and the wider Trump administration’s efforts to shrink government spending.
At present, the cuts are being challenged in US courts, but the outcome looks uncertain, at least for this financial year. But if they are cut, then this could result in an 88 percent potential cut in support to maternal and child health aid, an 87 percent cut to epidemics and emerging disease monitoring, and a 94 percent cut to programs aimed at family planning and reproductive health.
In order to assess and predict the impacts of this sudden and unprecedented cessation of funding, an international team of researchers examined data from 133 countries and territories that had various levels of USAID in the years between 2001 and 2021. They found that this aid had helped prevent over 90 million deaths in developing countries during this time.
Based on the assumption that funding would be slashed by 83 percent, the team’s model suggested that over 14 million more deaths could occur by 2030, all of which would be preventable if funding remained constant. They estimate that around 4.5 million children younger than 5 years of age will be among these deaths.
“Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030”, the team write in their report.
“Following the announcement of the termination of more than 83 percent of USAID’s programs, humanitarian organizations have raised serious concerns about the absence of adequate notice or planning for a phased transition. Without time to implement adaptive responses, the most severe effects cannot be mitigated. The short-term, medium-term, and long-term consequences for public health, economic development, and societal stability could be profound.”
Rather than stepping in to address the substantive gap left by the US, other Western donors have announced reductions in their aid budgets, introducing a significant funding crisis in the humanitarian and development aid sector.
This outcome threatens to reverse three decades of humanitarian progress and contributes to uncertainties across the world related to the current polycrisis – the confluence of problems stemming from concurrent international wars, geopolitical instability, climate change, and so on. In addition, the cuts could significantly undermine global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
The report is published in The Lancet.
disease,
mortality,
health,
USAID,
US,
trump,
aid,
humanitarian crisis
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