The dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. was contemptible for so many reasons, not least of which that it was based on false claims and puts millions of the world’s most vulnerable at risk. If you think the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was bad, consider the chaos and death since this administration’s abrupt withdrawal from the entire world. Instead of winding down projects responsibly, the U.S. government left like a thief in the night, owing money, breaking promises and abandoning American aid workers in conflict zones.
Although a federal judge on Tuesday cast U.S.A.I.D. a temporary lifeline, foreign aid as we knew it is gone. While some contracts might be brought back under the State Department, it’s unlikely that the U.S. government — the largest donor in the world, according to recent data — will soon restore its foreign aid to the level it was. That doesn’t mean the rest of us should give up trying to help other nations. Those who care about the world and America’s role in it need to create a new vision for what foreign aid could be.
It’s early days in the effort to reimagine aid, but this much is clear: It should be leaner and less bureaucratic. It should be based on partnerships that respond to local needs, not pronouncements from Washington. And it will sometimes be fueled by private donations rather than taxpayer dollars. A public discussion has already begun. For instance, Unlock Aid, a group that has been trying to reform foreign aid for years, is unveiling a series of new ideas this month.
The first step is acknowledging that the old system had flaws. To be sure, millions of lives were saved during famines and epidemics. But let’s be honest. U.S.A.I.D. could be inefficient and wasteful. It’s hard to talk about that because such acknowledgments get misused as weapons against foreign aid, but building a better blueprint requires it.
Part of the blame lies with Congress, which loaded up U.S.A.I.D. with burdensome regulations. That’s why, year after year, grants and contracts flowed to the same American behemoths that perfected the art of federal fund-raising. Last fiscal year, only about $2 billion — out of some tens of billions of dollars — went directly to local partners on the ground. Much of the rest of the money was funneled through international organizations like the World Bank, or big American nonprofits and companies that can spend as much as half of their budget on overhead costs like rent and salaries in the United States.
Top recipients of U.S.A.I.D. funds include the Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services, which gets high marks for its work, and the Washington-based for-profit company Chemonics, which often doesn’t. (Chemonics just agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle claims of fraudulent billing, providing fodder for Elon Musk’s assault on aid.) Organizations like these pay local partners around the world to work on U.S.A.I.D.’s behalf. But it doesn’t always end well. According to one survey, many local partners who worked on subcontracts from U.S.A.I.D. said that they were barely consulted on budgets and work plans, and were paid less than what they were promised.
That’s awful. Local groups are far more cost-effective and attuned to what communities need. They stay long after foreign workers depart. To make foreign aid more efficient and more effective, we should cut out the middlemen when we can. That’s what leaders in the global south have been demanding for decades. It’s what they were promised in 2016, when international funders, including U.S.A.I.D., agreed to spend 25 percent of their funding on local groups by 2020. U.S.A.I.D. was still falling short of that target when it was dismantled this year.
U.S.A.I.D.’s closure gut-punched everyone who works in this field, but inequities of the system remain. Big American organizations that got the most U.S.A.I.D. funding are the best positioned to weather the storm. Some have had grants reinstated. Others are attracting foundation money. Local partners are the ones left struggling to explain to needy people why projects ended overnight.
In the short run, Americans who care about foreign aid should donate directly to abandoned U.S.A.I.D. grantees, or to emergency bridge funds that have been set up to support them. Americans should also support online platforms that serve local groups such as Kuja and Disaster Accountability Project’s SmartResponse.org, which collected video appeals from its network and shared them with me for this article.
But over the long term, adjusting to the new reality means approaching aid in a radically different way. Time limits and exit strategies for U.S. funders should be baked in from the beginning. Projects that generate income to offset humanitarian activities should be encouraged, not shunned.
Dr. Deqo Mohamed, a Somali American OB-GYN who runs a hospital and a mobile clinic in Somaliland, charges patients a small fee. The money is used to pay local midwives and doctors, allowing them to earn a living. That also means that the hospital and clinic don’t have to rely on foreign aid workers, who often disappear when security gets shaky. Somalis are sometimes reluctant to pay because they are so used to getting free medical services from foreigners, she said. That mind-set is part of what needs to change, she said: “The change has to be both sides, not only international NGOS.”
Private donors will need to think differently, too. They should realize that they have the greatest impact when they empower local leaders, as funds like NEAR and the African Visionary Fund aim to do. While no private donor is likely to fill the U.S.A.I.D.-sized hole in the international aid budget, private philanthropy could help many groups survive with relatively small outlays.
In Goma, a city of roughly two million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and which has just been overrun by the rebel group M23, a local organization called BIFERD has been providing clean water and toilets to tens of thousands of displaced people. BIFERD had a six-month contract from U.S.A.I.D. for $500,000. Now that it has been canceled, about 40,000 people are in danger of losing access to sanitation, said Jonas Habimana, the group’s executive director, in a video appeal. The government, which has been at war with M23 for years, can’t handle the crisis, and most organizations in Goma were funded by U.S.A.I.D., he said. “Those who will still have a heart to support, this is the moment to come in solidarity with us,” he said. People “are really traumatized.”
In Ethiopia, a group called Action for Integrated Sustainable Development Association educated roughly 30,000 children displaced by war, and supported maternal health clinics and pharmacies serving some 390,000 people. The cost? Just $1.6 million over five years. And in Poland, a group called Fundacja Q has been giving aid and counseling to Ukrainian children who lost their parents, and to women who were raped by Russian soldiers. These are some of the most vulnerable people in the world. The projects that serve them should not disappear.
As American government generosity wanes and the global south grows more assertive, foreign aid must change, but we should not cede the vision of what it can be to Elon Musk or Donald Trump.
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