Latest news with #USaid
News24
11 hours ago
- Health
- News24
These are the children the United States left to die in Mozambique
In Mozambique, the health system is overwhelmingly built on US money. When the Trump administration instantly pulled much of this funding without warning, disease and death spread. Spotlight and GroundUp visited one of the worst affected regions to describe the human toll. Hospitals run short of life-saving drugs. Doctors and nurses are laid off en masse. Hospital lines get longer and longer. Some patients are given the wrong medication, likely because the data capturers (who manage patient files) have lost their jobs. Community case workers who deliver HIV medication to orphaned children stop coming. Without their antiretrovirals (ARVs), some of these children die, GroundUp reports. Following US President Donald Trump's executive order to suspend US global aid funding on 20 January, the health system in parts of Mozambique fell into a state of chaos. US aid agencies had financed much of the country's healthcare workforce, along with the transportation of drugs and diagnostic tests to government hospitals. In some provinces, this money came from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which restored much of its funding shortly after the executive order. But in the central provinces of Sofala and Manica the money came from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which permanently pulled most of its grants. For a week in June, I travelled to nine rural villages and towns across the two provinces. Interviews with grieving caregivers, health workers and government officials across these settlements all converged on one clear and near-universal conclusion: the funding cuts have led to the deaths of children. One of the clearest reasons is this. After USAID-backed community health workers were dismissed, thousands of HIV-positive children under their care were abandoned. Panic at all levels In 2020, a Sofala-based organisation called ComuSanas received a large USAID grant to employ hundreds of community workers throughout rural parts of the province. 'The project aimed to reduce mortality among children living with HIV,' says Joaquim Issufo, a former community worker with the project. He spoke to me from a street market in the impoverished district of Buzi, where he now runs a stall selling fish. 'We worked with children aged 0 to 17, especially orphans and vulnerable children.' These children live in remote villages, far away from public amenities. Some were found living in homes without any adults. Many others live with an elderly grandparent who can barely afford to feed them. Jesse Copelyn/GroundUp In the midst of poverty and isolation, the case workers, known locally as activists, functioned as a bridge between these children and the country's hospitals. They shuttled diagnostic tests between communities and health facilities. They brought children their medicines and ensured they took the correct doses at the right times. And they accompanied them to health facilities, and helped them weave through bureaucracy. Issufo notes that their role also extended far beyond health: they organised birth certificates, enrolled children in schools and referred them for housing. When drought and famine ripped through villages, they brought food baskets and provided nutritional education. In the villages that I went to, children and their caregivers referred to the activists as 'mother', 'father' or 'sister', and said that they were like family members. But after USAID issued stop-work orders to ComuSanas in January, those 'mothers and fathers' abruptly stopped visiting, and suddenly the region's most desperate children were left to fend for themselves. Issufo says that after this, there was 'panic at all levels, both for us as activists and also for our beneficiaries'. Children hospitalised and left for dead About 80km from Issufo's fish stall is the village of Tica, in the Nhamatanda district. Amid homes of mud brick and thatch, a group of former ComuSanas activists sit on logs, buckets and reed mats and explain the consequences of the programme's termination. '[Before the USAID cuts], I was taking care of a boy because [he] lives with an elderly woman, and she had to work,' says Marta Jofulande, 'I had to go to the health facility and give the child his [ARV] medication. I also helped to do things like preparing food. But with this suspension, I couldn't go anymore.' Jesse Copelyn/GroundUp Shortly after, Jofulande was told by the child's elderly caregiver that he had fallen ill, and was in critical care at a central hospital. 'I was the one bringing the [ARVs] to him,' says Jofulande, 'As soon as the programme stopped, he no longer took the medication, and that's when he relapsed. He is in a very critical condition and is breathing through a tube.' 'His name is Cleiton,' she adds. 'He's eight years old.' Jesse Copelyn/GroundUp Many other children have already perished. A 20-minute drive from Tica is the settlement of Mutua, in the Dondo district. There, activist Carlota Francisco says, 'During this pause, we had cases [of children] that were really critical that ended up losing their lives.' One of them had been a 2-year-old girl under her care. 'That child depended on me,' says Francisco, who explains that she would fetch and provide the girl's ARVs. After she stopped, she says the girl's caregivers failed to give her the correct dosages. The 2-year-old died shortly thereafter. Stories such as this were repeated in almost every village that we visited. Often, children or their caregivers attempted to get the medication without the activists. But many of the hospitals were in a state of chaos because USAID-funded health workers and data capturers had been laid off. The linkage officers that knew these children and had previously assisted them were gone too. (The procurement of the country's ARVs is financed by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This money continues to flow, but the distribution of these drugs to hospitals relies on US money.) Endless queues, drug shortages and the loss of patient files meant some didn't get their medication. Rates of ARV treatment fall throughout the province The director of health for the Buzi district, Roque Junior Gemo, explains that a key role of the community workers had been to extend health services to remote areas that they had long struggled to reach. 'They are like our tree branches to bring services to the people,' says Gemo, 'Our villages are very remote, and we have a large population that needs information [and] basic services.' 'Especially in the HIV area, we have terminal patients who were once followed up by activists. They used to get medications at home. Without that help, their condition worsened, and some died.' This forms part of an issue that extends far beyond the district of Buzi. In the Sofala capital of Beira, I sat down with some of the province's senior health officials. The HIV supervisor for the province, Manuel Seco, provided data on the HIV response in Sofala, before and after the cuts. Between May and December of 2024, the total number of people on ARVs in the province had risen by over 20 /000 people, the data shows. This increase occurred steadily, rising by 500 to 5 000 people each month. But as soon as the cuts were made, this progress was halted and the trend reversed. Since January, the number of people on ARV treatment has been falling by hundreds of people each month. The reason, according to Seco, is that many people who were on ARVs have stopped their treatment, while new ARV initiations have dropped sharply. And the impact extends far beyond just the HIV response. Jesse Copelyn/GroundUp TB left untreated Buried within a compound owned by Tongaat Hulett is a government hospital that services the rural population of Mafambisse, in Dondo district. Joaquim Mupanguiua, who deals with TB at the hospital, says that after the activists were laid off, the hospital saw a steep decline in the number of TB patients coming to the facility. 'Only when they are already very ill do they come to the health unit,' he says. 'But with the activists they would easily go to the communities and find the sick.' Indeed the number of patients coming to the hospital is roughly a third of what it once was: 'We used to get around 28 to 30 [TB] patients per month, but now we're down to fewer than 10,' Mupanguiua notes. Because patients come to the hospital when they're already severely ill, there's significantly less that health facilities can do for them. It's thus no surprise that Mupanguiua believes that there has been an uptick in needless TB deaths. Finding other ways Back in the Buzi district office, Gemo says that efforts have been made to assist terminal patients that had previously been supported by activists, but there are so many people in need that they aren't able to help everyone. Activists often said something similar – they continue to visit their beneficiaries when they can, they say, but without ComuSanas sponsoring their transport costs, many struggle to visit children in remote areas. And the loss of their income with the programme means that they now need to spend their days finding other ways to survive – subsistence farming and street markets are the usual routes. But this work rarely offers the kind of regular income that ComuSanas had been providing. 'Honestly, buying notebooks, pens and clothes for my children [has become] very difficult,' says Dondo-based activist, Brito Balao. Meanwhile, in Tica, activists asked how they could provide food to their former beneficiaries when they are themselves going hungry. Despite this, the activists still live within the same villages as their beneficiaries. And so unlike those in Washington, they cannot withdraw their support without facing the resentment or desperation of their communities. 'We work with love, and we get really sad not being able to be there for those kids,' says one Mutua-based activist. 'There's even another family that cried today [when they saw me]. 'You've been away for a while,' they said. Gosh, we feel bad.' Among former beneficiaries of the programme the sense of abandonment was palpable, and their anger was often directed at the former activists. This was often compounded by the fact that no one had explained to them why the programme had stopped. Jesse Copelyn/GroundUp In the village of Nharuchonga, Joana, explains that in the past her activist, Fatima, would always come and ensure that her daughter took her ARVs. Now that Fatima has stopped coming, her daughter doesn't always take the medication, she says. (Fatima is present during this conversation.) 'We've been abandoned by Fatima,' she states, looking directly away from the former activist. 'Until now we have been too shy to ask why she has abandoned us.' In many other cases, the tone was simply one of sadness. Back in Tica, inside an outdoor kitchen made of corrugated iron sheets, Maria holds her five-year-old granddaughter Teresa. Despite facing hunger at various points over recent years, she cooks sweet potatoes above a small fire, and insists that everyone eats. Both of Teresa's parents died of AIDS, says Maria. It has been left to her to raise the child, all the while trying to grow rice and maize for subsistence – an effort hampered by frequent drought. For a long time Maria has had help with this parental role, she says. Activist Marta Jofulande had been assisting her family and acting like a mother to the child. But since the programme was terminated, they don't see much of Jofulande anymore. Instead, five-year-old Teresa has been forced to deal with the exit of yet another parental figure./ A note on quotes: Most of our interviews were in Portuguese and were mediated by a local translator. We subsequently transcribed and translated the recordings of these interviews using AI-based software, including Descript and ChatGPT. Where there was a significant mismatch between the interpretations of the translator and the software, we contacted the interviewee or got third parties to help translate the recordings. The cost of travel, accommodation and the journalist's remuneration was shared between GroundUp and Spotlight.
Telegraph
27-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Ukraine counts the cost as military aid is cut back
As the bloody battle against Vladimir Putin's troops stretches into its fourth year, the toll on Ukraine is mounting. Hundreds of billions of pounds have been spent on fighting the Russian invaders, and at least 46,000 soldiers have died. Hopes that Donald Trump would bring a prompt end to the war have all but vanished. Instead, his constant flip-flopping has made many fear that the leader of the free world has abandoned Ukraine. For the war-torn country, this means crucial flows of US aid and weaponry could reduce to a trickle or cease completely. 'It is absolutely a risk. Ukraine is nervous about that. The strategy is to draw down as much as they can now, stockpile it for that time. There's not a lot of trust there,' says Timothy Ash, an associate fellow at Chatham House. 'It will make the fight more difficult, but they can still continue. They can sustain the war for at least six months to a year. The war grinds on without some peace process.' Making aid stretch For Kyiv, the uncertainty over funding means every dollar must stretch as far as possible. 'If the enemy's unmanned aerial vehicle [like a military drone] costs $50,000 [£37,000], and you hit it with a rocket that costs $1m, that's not cost-effective,' says Oleksandr Barabash, a software developer who has turned into a defence entrepreneur as a result of the war. 'You need to hit it with something cheaper, like we do with radio-controlled drones. 'The prices really make a difference, because all devices are being destroyed on a daily basis. You cannot spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on something that will be destroyed in a week or maybe in days.' The company Barabash co-founded with other volunteers, called Falcons, is just one example of Ukraine's rapidly growing and sprawling defence sector. The industry can now produce many essential types of military equipment for far less than European and American firms. The push to find ways to make the war less costly – both in terms of human and financial losses – is more acute than ever. 'We have enough commitments till the end of this year, mostly from the EU. But there is significant uncertainty for the next year,' says Yurii Haidai, a senior economist at the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv. 'There are still no commitments that would ensure we can make it through the next year.' 'Paying a fair share' The threat to financing does not just come from the White House. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has several times tried to block support for Ukraine. He may well try again this summer, says Ash. Ukraine is well financed for now – thanks in part to the Biden administration rushing through £22.5bn in the final months of last year. But Kyiv cannot rely on a similar windfall arriving after that runs out. 'There is an austerity approach visible,' says Haidai. 'The ministry of finance is very conservative now, focusing on financial resources to be used as wisely as possible to make them stretch as far as possible this year and probably into next year.' Volodymyr Zelensky's government funds half of the Ukrainian budget from taxpayer revenues, with the remainder coming from foreign grants and loans. Most of the funding is spent on the war effort. This comes in the form of manufacturing weapons and artillery shells, paying the salaries of 1m soldiers and compensating the families of those killed in battle. 'They are taking measures to collect as much as is feasible from the war-impacted economy,' Haidai says. 'So tax revenues in real terms are growing despite limitations like [the fact] that there are 5m people who fled the war and electricity is limited.' This means Ukraine's workers and private sector businesses must still keep paying the taxman while living under air raids, daily blackouts and inflation. 'Business and people of Ukraine pay their fair share to support this war effort and the defence. We would very much expect that the West would step in with their share,' Haidai says. Sprawling defence industry Boosting the domestic defence industry, which dates back to Soviet times, is crucial to making the money and military aid stretch further. 'After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was left with a big chunk of the Soviet arms industry. But back then maintaining the arms industry was not a priority given that it was just after the Cold War. So there was a decline,' says Lorenzo Scarazzato, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Putin's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have sparked a revival. Ukraine's defence industry now supplies around 30pc of the munitions for the war and has been fuelled by start-ups and entrepreneurs like Barabash. 'After the full scale invasion, I tried to be drafted,' he says. 'But they never called me back, and I had no previous experience with combat. So I started to look how can I help. We connected with other volunteers and started to develop things that soldiers require on battlefield.' His company specialises in sensors that can transmit from the battlefield despite Putin's forces scrambling GPS signals, making it possible to quickly identity and take out incoming threats. 'We lack everything. So we were asked: can you produce this, because the cheapest one costs more than $100,000 a device? We came up with this first device with a sensor that cost 10 times less than the cheapest solution [on the] Ukrainian market, and 1,000 times less than any device from European on US market,' Barabash says. Slow international response Such ingenuity has not been driven only by Russian aggression. Ukraine has also learnt from delays in the international response, says Serhii Kuzan, a former adviser to Ukraine's ministry of defence. 'The several-month delay in the decision to provide American assistance and the EU's delays in the second half of 2022 after the successful counteroffensive by the defence forces in Kharkiv and Kherson regions, and a nine-month delay in aid in late 2023 early 2024, cost Ukraine dearly,' Kuzan says, who is now the chairman of Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre. 'These delays not only hampered the Ukrainian Defence Forces' capabilities, but also gave Russia a chance to recover from its defeats and mobilise its own armed forces. Therefore, Ukraine has prioritised the development of the defence industry.' Even still, there is only so much Ukraine can do. Experts warn there are some types of equipment the country could not replace if going at alone without US backing, such as some fighter jets. Losing equipment like this is a greater worry than running out of money. Kyiv's best hope may be to convince European leaders that investing in Ukraine is not just throwing money into a never-ending conflict: it is an investment in the future of the Continent's treatment efforts. 'The main obstacle is the lack of funding,' says Kuzan. 'Overcoming fear and making a decision to direct these funds to Ukrainian weapons production will allow Europe to both gain time and receive very specific dividends for itself – cheap and effective weapons for itself in the future.' It is an attractive proposition. But there is no guarantee leaders will buy in. For now, Kyiv is left to make every cent stretch as far as it can as Russia's assault on Ukraine grinds on.
The Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
This is the beginning of the end of international aid. What will the new world look like?
In recent months, international aid has been subject to the"shock and awe" of dramatic cuts by the largest donor in the world, the United States, as well as many European countries. But this reduction – recent projections suggest a $40 billion cut is expected in 2025 – is more than just a drop in funds. It increasingly looks like an assault on the norms and values – like solidarity and multilateral cooperation – that have been at the core of the Western liberal internationalist system since the Second World War. This attack has not happened overnight. In fact, it's been a long-time coming. Criticisms of aid stretch back several decades and are not unique to the US. Free marketeers have long taken issue with a model of economic development reliant on benevolent state intervention, while those leaning to the left have expressed frustrations with the neocolonial aspirations of development that seeks influence over formerly dependent colonies. The sector has trumpeted the effectiveness of aid to respond to criticisms that it doesn't deliver results, but has not robustly moved forward the true devolution of power needed to achieve real impact. The aid sector has talked about global institutional reform but not addressed real imbalances of decision-making and representation between countries. This glacial pace of change has frustrated both aid providers and recipients alike. Before Donald Trump 's executive order suspending aid and dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), aid cuts had already been announced in several countries including Germany, France and the Netherlands. The UK has also recently cut its aid budget in order to grow its military spending. While global aid budgets grew to reach a notional peak of $223 billion (£166bn) in 2023, the amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) spent beyond national borders has actually been falling in recent years, with more and more aid spent by major donors helping refugees inside their own countries, incentivising exports and external investment and reducing climate emissions. The reality is that foreign aid hit both peak legitimacy and peak volume prior to this Trump-induced upheaval. And now the clock is ticking to define what this new 'post-aid' paradigm should look like. In a series of meetings hosted by the think tank ODI Global, several government donors underwriting aid have been reflecting on how to manage short term political and fiscal pressures, while identifying a possible long-term vision for the next iteration of development cooperation and their role in it. But beyond these immediate challenges, officials recognise an opportunity to exploit this moment of disruption to redesign a global development cooperation system fit for the realities of a multipolar world, as well as new development challenges – from increased humanitarian crises to climate change. Several voices from the Global South have also expressed considerable enthusiasm for a fundamental rethink, perhaps even more so than officials from donor countries horrified by the collateral damage of the sudden, sharp withdrawal of funding. So what should come next? Our discussions highlighted the need for a sound rationale for the modern-day purpose of public spending for development. Our research finds that narratives are most likely to succeed if they link to core national interests, cross-border challenges and international solidarity. New, compelling narratives for public spending on development can help taxpayers understand why such expenditure is important, which in turn can grow broader based political leadership that can champion such investment. Our first meeting detailed three plausible policy rationales: narrowing the focus of aid on the most vulnerable in fragile and humanitarian contexts; inviting all countries, rich or poor, to collectively tackle shared global challenges; and transforming the structural drivers of inequality by changing policies on trade and debt that disadvantage the Global South. To put these ideas into action we will need to change the way aid institutions function. For example, Western NGOs working internationally will need to transition away from delivering bags of rice and tents and being contracted to provide services, towards building progressive movements and actively trying to influence the policies of their own governments. Donor governments may spend less on big aid budgets, but focus more on other ways to create change, such as sharing intellectual property and changing their policies on migration or fossil fuel production. It may be time to retire the traditional concept of rich countries giving money directly to poor countries altogether, in favour of pooling funding through institutions, like the United Nations, designed to address collective challenges – though such international institutions will need to be revitalised and streamlined. In 1969, the Pearson Commission, named after Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, was formed to recommend "a new basis for international cooperation" and ultimately led to an acceptance among donor countries to spend 0.7 per cent of their GDP on aid, creating the international aid architecture we know today. We have reached a similar turning point and require similarly robust thinking about a new paradigm for international cooperation in the 21st century. A modern-day independent commission of high-level experts could help to think through the strategic and operational choices that need to urgently be made.
Fast Company
16-05-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
Food that could feed millions may expire due to USAID cuts
Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation. The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration's decision in January to cut global aid programmes, according to three people who previously worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development and two sources from other aid organisations. Some stocks that are due to expire as early as July are likely to be destroyed, either by incineration, using them as animal feed or disposing of them in other ways, two of the sources said. The warehouses, which are run by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), contain between 60,000 to 66,000 metric tonnes of food, sourced from American farmers and manufacturers, the five people said. An undated inventory list for the warehouses – which are located in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai and Houston – stated that they contained more than 66,000 tonnes of commodities, including high-energy biscuits, vegetable oil and fortified grains. Those supplies are valued at over $98 million, according to the document reviewed by Reuters, which was shared by an aid official and verified by a U.S. government source as up to date. That food could feed over a million people for three months, or the entire population of Gaza for a month and a half, according to a Reuters analysis using figures from the World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian agency. The U.N. body says that one tonne of food – typically including cereals, pulses and oil – can meet the daily need of approximately 1,660 people. The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid spending by President Donald Trump come as global hunger levels are rising due to conflict and climate change, which are driving more people toward famine, undoing decades of progress. According to the World Food Programme, 343 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine. Most of them are in Gaza and Sudan, but also in pockets of South Sudan, Haiti and Mali. A spokesperson for the State Department, which oversees USAID, said in response to detailed questions about the food stocks that it was working to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of aid programs and their transfer by July as part of the USAID decommissioning process. 'USAID is continuously consulting with partners on where to best distribute commodities at USAID prepositioning warehouses for use in emergency programs ahead of their expiration dates,' the spokesperson said. Some food likely to be destroyed Although the Trump administration has issued waivers for some humanitarian programmes – including in Gaza and Sudan – the cancellation of contracts and freezing of funds needed to pay suppliers, shippers and contractors has left food stocks stuck in the four warehouses, the sources said. A proposal to hand the stocks to aid organizations that can distribute them is on hold, according to the U.S. source and two former USAID sources briefed on the proposal. The plan is awaiting approval from the State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance, the two former USAID sources said. The office is headed by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former operative of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, who is now overseeing the decommissioning of USAID. The Office of Foreign Assistance, DOGE and Lewin himself did not respond to requests for comment. Nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits stored at a USAID warehouse in Dubai are due to expire in July, according to a former USAID official and an aid official familiar with the inventories. The biscuits could feed at least 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month, according to Reuters calculations. The biscuits are now likely to be destroyed or turned into animal feed, the former USAID official said, adding that in a typical year only around 20 tonnes of food might be disposed of in this way because of damage in transit or storage. Some of those stocks were previously intended for Gaza and famine-stricken Sudan, the former official said. The State Department spokesperson did not directly respond to questions on how much of the food aid in storage was close to expiry and whether this would be destroyed. USAID plans to fire almost all of its staff in two rounds on July 1 and Sept. 2, as it prepares to shut down, according to a notification submitted to Congress in March. The two former USAID sources said many of the critical staff needed to manage the warehouses or move the supplies will depart in July. Children dying The United States is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data. U.S. food aid includes ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) such as high-energy biscuits and Plumpy'Nut, a peanut-based paste. Navyn Salem, the founder of Edesia, a U.S.-based manufacturer of Plumpy'Nut, said termination of transportation contracts by USAID had created a massive backlog that had forced the firm to hire an additional warehouse to store its own production. The resulting stockpile of 5,000 tonnes, worth $13 million, could feed more than 484,000 children, she said. Salem said that email exchanges with Lewin have left her 'hopeful' that a way will be found soon to get her product to the desperate children who need it. The UN children's agency UNICEF warned in late March that RUTF stocks were running short in 17 countries due to funding cuts, potentially forcing 2.4 million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition to go without these crucial supplies for the rest of the year. The four USAID warehouses contain the majority of the agency's pre-positioned food stockpiles. In normal times, these could be rapidly deployed to places like Sudan, where 25 million people – half the country's population – face acute hunger. Jeanette Bailey, director of nutrition at the International Rescue Committee, which receives much of its funding from the U.S., said it was scaling back its programmes following the cuts. She said the impact of global shortages of therapeutic foods due to the disruption to U.S. aid flows is difficult to measure, particularly in places where aid programmes no longer operate. 'What we do know, though, is that if a child's in an inpatient stabilization centre and they're no longer able to access treatment, more than 60% of those children are at risk of dying very quickly,' she said. Action Against Hunger, a non-profit that relied on the United States for over 30% of its global budget, said last month the U.S. cuts had already led to the deaths of at least six children at its programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, after it was forced to suspend admissions. Cuts causing chaos The Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, which coordinates the U.S. government's aid efforts overseas, was plunged into chaos by the Trump administration's cutbacks, the five sources said. The bureau's staff were among thousands of USAID employees put on administrative leave pending their terminations. While some staff were brought back to work until their severence dates, aid administration has not recovered. Three sources told Reuters that the contract to maintain USAID warehouses in the South African port city of Durban had been cancelled, raising questions about future aid distribution. Reuters was unable to confirm that independently. Two former USAID officials said that the Djibouti and Dubai facilities would be handed over to a team at the State Department which has yet to be formed. The State Department did not comment. A spokesperson for the WFP, which relies heavily on U.S. funding, declined to comment on the stranded food stocks. Asked if it was engaged in discussions to release them, the spokesperson said: 'We greatly appreciate the support from all our donors, including the U.S., and we will continue to work with partners to advocate for the needs of the most vulnerable in urgent need of life-saving assistance'.
Globe and Mail
16-05-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
U.S. aid cuts leave food rations for millions mouldering in storage around the world, sources say
Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation. The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration's decision in January to cut global aid programs, according to three people who previously worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development and two sources from other aid organizations. Some stocks that are due to expire as early as July are likely to be destroyed, either by incineration, using them as animal feed or disposing of them in other ways, two of the sources said. The warehouses, which are run by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), contain between 60,000 to 66,000 metric tonnes of food, sourced from American farmers and manufacturers, the five people said. An undated inventory list for the warehouses – which are located in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai and Houston – stated that they contained more than 66,000 tonnes of commodities, including high-energy biscuits, vegetable oil and fortified grains. Those supplies are valued at over $98-million, according to the document reviewed by Reuters, which was shared by an aid official and verified by a U.S. government source as up to date. That food could feed over a million people for three months, or the entire population of Gaza for a month and a half, according to a Reuters analysis using figures from the World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian agency. The UN body says that one tonne of food – typically including cereals, pulses and oil – can meet the daily need of approximately 1,660 people. The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid spending by President Donald Trump come as global hunger levels are rising due to conflict and climate change, which are driving more people toward famine, undoing decades of progress. According to the World Food Programme, 343 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine. Most of them are in Gaza and Sudan, but also in pockets of South Sudan, Haiti and Mali. A spokesperson for the State Department, which oversees USAID, said in response to detailed questions about the food stocks that it was working to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of aid programs and their transfer by July as part of the USAID decommissioning process. 'USAID is continuously consulting with partners on where to best distribute commodities at USAID prepositioning warehouses for use in emergency programs ahead of their expiration dates,' the spokesperson said. Although the Trump administration has issued waivers for some humanitarian programmes – including in Gaza and Sudan – the cancellation of contracts and freezing of funds needed to pay suppliers, shippers and contractors has left food stocks stuck in the four warehouses, the sources said. A proposal to hand the stocks to aid organizations that can distribute them is on hold, according to the U.S. source and two former USAID sources briefed on the proposal. The plan is awaiting approval from the State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance, the two former USAID sources said. The office is headed by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former operative of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, who is now overseeing the decommissioning of USAID. The Office of Foreign Assistance, DOGE and Lewin himself did not respond to requests for comment. Nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits stored at a USAID warehouse in Dubai are due to expire in July, according to a former USAID official and an aid official familiar with the inventories. The biscuits could feed at least 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month, according to Reuters calculations. The biscuits are now likely to be destroyed or turned into animal feed, the former USAID official said, adding that in a typical year only around 20 tonnes of food might be disposed of in this way because of damage in transit or storage. Some of those stocks were previously intended for Gaza and famine-stricken Sudan, the former official said. The State Department spokesperson did not directly respond to questions on how much of the food aid in storage was close to expiry and whether this would be destroyed. USAID plans to fire almost all of its staff in two rounds on July 1 and Sept. 2, as it prepares to shut down, according to a notification submitted to Congress in March. The two former USAID sources said many of the critical staff needed to manage the warehouses or move the supplies will depart in July. The United States is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38 per cent of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61-billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data. U.S. food aid includes ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) such as high-energy biscuits and Plumpy'Nut, a peanut-based paste. Navyn Salem, the founder of Edesia, a U.S.-based manufacturer of Plumpy'Nut, said termination of transportation contracts by USAID had created a massive backlog that had forced the firm to hire an additional warehouse to store its own production. The resulting stockpile of 5,000 tonnes, worth $13-million, could feed more than 484,000 children, she said. Salem said that e-mail exchanges with Lewin have left her 'hopeful' that a way will be found soon to get her product to the desperate children who need it. The UN children's agency UNICEF warned in late March that RUTF stocks were running short in 17 countries due to funding cuts, potentially forcing 2.4 million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition to go without these crucial supplies for the rest of the year. The four USAID warehouses contain the majority of the agency's pre-positioned food stockpiles. In normal times, these could be rapidly deployed to places like Sudan, where 25 million people – half the country's population – face acute hunger. Jeanette Bailey, director of nutrition at the International Rescue Committee, which receives much of its funding from the U.S., said it was scaling back its programmes following the cuts. She said the impact of global shortages of therapeutic foods due to the disruption to U.S. aid flows is difficult to measure, particularly in places where aid programmes no longer operate. 'What we do know, though, is that if a child's in an inpatient stabilization centre and they're no longer able to access treatment, more than 60 per cent of those children are at risk of dying very quickly,' she said. Action Against Hunger, a non-profit that relied on the United States for over 30 per cent of its global budget, said last month the U.S. cuts had already led to the deaths of at least six children at its programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, after it was forced to suspend admissions. The Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, which co-ordinates the U.S. government's aid efforts overseas, was plunged into chaos by the Trump administration's cutbacks, the five sources said. The bureau's staff were among thousands of USAID employees put on administrative leave pending their terminations. While some staff were brought back to work until their severance dates, aid administration has not recovered. Three sources told Reuters that the contract to maintain USAID warehouses in the South African port city of Durban had been cancelled, raising questions about future aid distribution. Reuters was unable to confirm that independently. Two former USAID officials said that the Djibouti and Dubai facilities would be handed over to a team at the State Department which has yet to be formed. The State Department did not comment. A spokesperson for the WFP, which relies heavily on U.S. funding, declined to comment on the stranded food stocks. Asked if it was engaged in discussions to release them, the spokesperson said: 'We greatly appreciate the support from all our donors, including the U.S., and we will continue to work with partners to advocate for the needs of the most vulnerable in urgent need of life-saving assistance'.
