As Effects Ripple Out, Quakers React to Devastating USAID Cuts

On January 20, President Donald Trump called for a three-month review of international aid programs which led to cutting $54 billion, or 90 percent, from the budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Associated Press reported.

Quakers who worked for international development organizations have lost jobs. Residents of developing countries have lost access to lifesaving medicine, education, and funding.

One Friend who lost work due to the cuts expressed particular concern about how fast the defunding happened. Although people who work in the international assistance sector often intend to have residents of developing countries eventually take over their work, the process of doing so takes much longer than the several days over which the cuts were announced, according to Spee Braun, a management consultant in international development and humanitarian aid who has worked for a variety of organizations, including Save the Children. Staff of international organizations did not have time to hand off their work to local colleagues.

“We are experts in our field at working ourselves out of a job,” said Braun, who is a member of Old Chatham (N.Y.) Meeting. She lives in Quaker Intentional Village–Canaan in Columbia County, N.Y.

Braun estimates that at least 50,000 U.S. employees lost their jobs due to the defunding.

The clients she consults with are cutting staff and programs. One organization was owed $1 billion for past work done [update: she has since clarified that there was $2 billion owed and that some has since been paid out]. She knows a person who submitted an invoice for $35,000 and the organization said it could not pay for the work.

On March 10, a federal judge ordered the administration to pay for work that was already funded by Congress but did not require existing contracts to continue, Reuters reported.

Former Trump advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) until his departure in May, described international aid spending as wasteful. Musk said he considered USAID “beyond repair,” The Guardian reported.

Labels such as “fraud, waste, and abuse” have negatively affected employees’ emotional well-being, Braun explained.

“It’s devastating psychologically,” said Braun, who holds a master’s degree in international affairs and was formerly proficient in Arabic.

International aid employees from the United States collaborated with professionals in developing countries. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost work as the effects of the cuts ripple out, estimates Ann Hendrix-Jenkins, who was a consultant working with USAID’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance.

“A lot of those people are the main breadwinner for their extended families,” said Hendrix-Jenkins, an attender at Hammersmith Meeting in London, UK.

Hendrix-Jenkins still consults with the Hunger Project, which did not receive funding from the U.S. government.

Programs in developing countries have been closed due to funding cuts. Three thousand Kenyan farmers had enrolled in a sustainable farming program that had to be completely canceled, according to Hendrix-Jenkins. She knows a woman in Nigeria who ran a small nonprofit that lost all funding.

Funding cuts to health programs mean potential pandemics such as avian flu are more threatening. In addition, the United States loses the soft power diplomacy benefits that come with supporting foreign aid, according to Hendrix-Jenkins. China has significant investments in Africa so U.S. businesses are at a disadvantage by comparison.

Potentially millions of people in Africa will lose access to treatment for tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS that would save their lives, according to David Bucura, coordinator of Friends Peace Teams’ African Great Lakes Initiative.

Defunding USAID has caused the collapse of micro-lending programs for women in some African countries, Bucura noted. USAID-supported education programs have ended, affecting some of the most vulnerable people on the continent.

“The Trump administration’s decision to reduce foreign aid has sparked concerns about Africa’s growing debt burden and the continent’s reliance on international assistance. Some African leaders are now advocating for homegrown solutions to replace traditional aid models,” Bucura said.