Two days after a catastrophic earthquake shook Nepal in April 2015, the United States Agency for International Development deployed a 128-member disaster response team to assess how it could help and pledged $10 million in humanitarian aid. The agency later provided miles of tarp for shelters, helped build temporary schools out of bamboo and used mapping technology to help people find clean water.
But two weeks after the country’s worst natural disaster since then — the flash floods triggered by a glacial fall that left more than 5,000 dead or missing — the United States has dialed back, sending $3.6 million to provide food for 10,000 households.
U.S.A.I.D. is conspicuous by its absence.
Nonprofit groups in Nepal that were funded by the American aid agency said they have had to shut down some of their programs since the Trump administration gutted it early last year, making it harder for them to support relief and rescue efforts.
The difference in the U.S. response to the earthquake and the floods was “night and day,” said Corey O’Hara, an international development expert based in Nepal who oversaw the closeout of a U.S.A.I.D. program last year. “The U.S. had an incredibly important role from the start of that particular disaster,” he said. “At this point, the U.S. response is invisible.”
Development experts and government officials highlighted a bigger issue. The pullback by the United States from providing humanitarian and development assistance has had the effect of not just cutting off disaster aid but also shrinking the total pool of money available, a significant issue for an impoverished country that must rebuild towns, bridges, roads and schools, and care for thousands of displaced people.
Swarnim Wagle, Nepal’s finance minister who was involved in the post-earthquake recovery, said that while U.S.A.I.D.’s role in immediate relief would have been limited, the American retreat from international assistance has had a cascading effect on how other major economies view foreign aid commitments.
By dismantling U.S.A.I.D. and pulling out of other international agencies and treaties, he said in an interview, the United States “seemed to have emboldened other rich countries to also follow a similar path.” He expected official development assistance — in the form of grants — to drop.
The Nepali government has argued that the country is disproportionately affected by climate change linked to major polluters and therefore should be eligible for compensation rather than charity from Western and other developed nations.
Former U.S.A.I.D. employees, government officials and development experts said they expect to be working with less foreign aid than in 2015 to help with relief and rebuilding efforts.
Nepal is one of dozens of countries suffering the fallout of President Trump’s decision to end U.S.A.I.D. The agency’s grants helped international and local humanitarian groups do everything from administering vaccines to getting more children in school and mitigating the impact of climate change.
The State Department said in a statement that the U.S. response to the floods in Nepal had been “fast, flexible and driven by conditions on the ground.” The dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. allowed the department to “use humanitarian partners to move resources far more quickly and more efficiently to communities in need,” the statement said.
Nepal, an impoverished country vulnerable to natural disasters, has long relied on foreign aid and loans for development and rebuilding. In 1951, the United States signed an agreement to support Nepal’s development through a predecessor of U.S.A.I.D. and it has given more than $1.5 billion in grants over the decades.
In recent years, the agency included climate change in its programs, training people in how to handle natural disasters, from assessing their magnitude to participating in search-and-rescue operations. In 2022, U.S.A.I.D. signed a five-year agreement to give $659 million to Nepal for economic development, but those projects have now ceased.
Many former U.S.A.I.D. employees said that the agency’s goal was to give funds and training to nonprofits so that they could prepare for disasters and launch rescue and relief operations swiftly.
U.S.A.I.D. was “the first responder in search and rescue, it was the first donor who sat down with the government,” said Stuti Basnyet, a development consultant who worked at the agency until last year. Ms. Basnyet said it played the role of a “convener and connector, and that’s the big gap that many of us are feeling right now.”
After the floods in late August, which killed more than 1,300 people and left at least 5,000 missing in Nepal and neighboring Tibet, there are tens of thousands of survivors who need help: medicines, food, blankets, clothing and shelter.
Those displaced have streamed into hospitals in Kathmandu, the capital, and Bidur, where an army training center was temporarily converted into a relief camp. Several humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations and International Medical Corps, are helping the Nepali government with relief work on the ground.
The bill for long-term recovery — rebuilding bridges, highways, electricity poles, houses, schools and hotels — is still being tallied but will run into billions of dollars. After the 2015 earthquake, Nepal needed more than $7 billion, much of which came from credit extended by the World Bank and others, and which the country is still paying back.
But development assistance is shrinking as a whole. In addition to Mr. Trump’s decision to shutter U.S.A.I.D., he withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization. It had been its largest backer until January.
Although Britain pledged around $6.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Nepal after the floods, it announced last year that it will cut overseas development assistance from 0.7 percent of its budget to 0.3 percent to redirect funds to defense and other domestic issues, starting in 2027.
The Japanese government pledged about $8 million in emergency aid to Nepal in the immediate aftermath of the 2015 earthquake. Following the recent floods, it promised about $3 million.
But the destruction from the floods is likely to be several times greater than that caused by the earthquake, said Govind Raj Pokharel, the former head of Nepal’s National Reconstruction Authority, which was established to oversee post-earthquake reconstruction.
“The paradox is that we have seen less interest from the international community in extending support,” he said. “The initial signs are not encouraging.”
Mujib Mashal and Javier C. Hernández contributed reporting.
The post Nepal’s Flood Relief Workers Feel the Pain of Trump’s Cuts to U.S.A.I.D. appeared first on New York Times.
