It’s been a long hard month since the Trump administration set its sights on USAID, unleashing a funding freeze that’s thrown global aid into chaos — from supply chains to emergency response.
Devex analyst Miguel Antonio Tamonan has been tracking the fallout daily, crunching the numbers to reveal the full scale of the damage. His latest dive into OECD’s Creditor Reporting System paints a stark picture: the U.S. is the world’s biggest bilateral donor, yet its foreign aid priorities are now hanging by a thread.
Here’s a taster of what Miguel found:
- Of the $223.3 billion in total official development assistance from Development Assistance Committee members, the U.S. contributed $64.7 billion — almost 30%.
- Subtracting humanitarian relief, admin costs, and in-donor refugee costs, USAID had $27.5 billion for sector-specific programs. The top priority in 2023 was government and civil society, which received $13.6 billion, up 25.8% from 2022.
- U.S. funding comprised over 50% of global ODA for 17 key areas in 2023, including malaria control, narcotics control, and tuberculosis programs. If the freeze continues, some funding could vanish entirely, threatening progress decades in the making.
Read: Which sectors are most vulnerable to US aid cuts