Attachments
Background
On January 20, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump issued Presidential Executive Order (E.O) Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid, which mandated a 90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance in order to assess programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States’ foreign policy. The E.O specified that assistance may resume prior to the end of the 90-day period, but this was contingent on a review by the Secretary of State in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget. The parameters of the review process are not clear and have not been publicised, but the U.S. administration has already started cancelling hundreds of USAID contracts and grants, effective immediately. In Fiscal Year 2024, USAID allocated $9.9 Billion of its budget for humanitarian programming, the vast majority of which ($9.5 Billion) funded Emergency Response in the immediate aftermath of conflicts and natural disasters. This is now all subject to review.
As a result of the E.O, and subsequent implementation notices, some global humanitarian programmes have ground to a halt, with the freeze impacting not just U.S. funded programming, but also a multitude of other assistance that relied, at least in part, on U.S funding to support or complement aid delivery in a number of contexts. Organisations are waiting for clear and explicit green lights from their donor focal point at precisely the same time that USAID/BHA staff have been placed on administrative leave en masse, and the few remaining are overwhelmed by the new directives. Individual agencies will have different risk appetites on how to interpret the waivers and how much to spend now, depending on their leadership and other sources of funding. Waiting for clarity will undoubtedly delay critical life-saving assistance, but taking a ‘no regrets’ approach may result in expenses which are not later reimbursed, with financial or legal penalties at a later stage and potential resultant permanent loss of U.S government funding.
In the short term, the 90-day suspension will disproportionately affect Syria’s most vulnerable communities who, after nearly 14 years of conflict, are wholly dependent on aid for their survival. Absent concrete data on what the actual funding gap is for Syria and, crucially, how many people will be affected, prioritisation over how to now distribute scarce resources will be extremely difficult, but should be the priority in order to maximise what resources are available for those most in need, and to ensure those needs do not unnecessarily increase as a result of the freeze.