February 18, 2025 • 39 mins
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was previously the largest bilateral donor across the world, was created in 1961 to use the U.S.’s soft power to influence and assist other countries. It has since grown into a department with more than 13,000 employees, the majority of which have worked overseas to provide emergency and humanitarian response, food assistance, economic growth activities, and more. Elissa Miolene, reporter at Devex, sits down to talk with us about the impact of the past few week’s chaotic attacks to USAID.
Within hours of President Trump returning to office, there was a foreign aid freeze, followed by a stop-work order. Disorder took over, with a Congressional communication that USAID would be downsized, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing he would take over USAID, and waves of furloughs and layoffs at the agency and with partners that USAID works with. The deterioration of USAID has, of course, resulted in people in countries around the world being unable to access dependable care and resources.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Re Pros, fight Back a podcast on all
things related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice. Hey, re pros. This isMonday, Jenny , coming to you
with a quick update to thisweek's episode. Um, we recorded
the interview last week, sothere have been some changes
since it was recorded. Um, thisweek we are focusing on the
federal freeze on foreignassistance. Um, specifically we
(00:27):
focus on U-S-A-I-D and what thefreeze has meant to U-S-A-I-D
and program recipients and whythis is so horrible and what it
means going forward. We do talkabout that. There were some
court cases moving on and wewere waiting to hear rulings.
Um, so late Thursday night, afederal judge ruled that the
administration must restore thefunding that has been halted.
(00:49):
So that is amazing news. But asof recording on Monday at
three, I don't know if that ishappening yet. If the money has
been, has started to move andget to people, we know that the
government has until tomorrow,February 18th to show that it
is complying with the order.
So, you know, I debated whetherwe should just pull this
(01:10):
episode, but this, this courtorder, but I highly doubt this
is the last we're gonna hear ofattacks on U-S-A-I-D , whether
that means they're trying to,you know, subsume the whole
agency under the StateDepartment and gut a lot of the
programs, if it means that onlyspecific things are being gonna
be defunded. I just think it'sreally important that we have
(01:32):
this conversation to talk aboutwhat is happening at U-S-A-I-D
right now, because it is partof this bigger attack on the
federal government. And so it ,it was important to , to air
this episode anyway. And like Isaid, we don't know that the
government is actuallycomplying with the order yet.
So, you know , we should findout today when you are all are
listening on the 18th. But justknow, you know, we talk about
(01:57):
it while the freeze was stillin place before the judge's
ruling, but as of right now, wedon't know that anything has
necessarily changed. But I didwanna just flag at up top that
a judge has ruled theadministration must restore
that funding. Okay, with that,let's go into my intro. Hi, Ray
(02:17):
Rose . How's everybody doing?
I'm your host Jenny Wetter ,and my pronouns are she, her,
and apparently Cinder wanted tosay hi to y'all as well. I hope
everybody is hanging in there.
Okay, we're gonna do somethinga little different this week
than my usual introduction. Ihave a wonderful conversation
with Alyssa , withdevex talking all about
(02:39):
U-S-A-I-D and what's happeningthere and the importance of
foreign assistance. And it's areally wonderful conversation.
It is really important that wetalk about development
assistance and why it is soimportant. It is one of the
three key pillars or three legson our foreign policy national
(03:01):
security stool , along withdiplomacy and defense. So
losing development assistancemakes the rest unstable. This
is why it is so important thatwe are having this conversation
about U-S-A-I-D and the broaderthings U-S-A-I-D does. But
since Alyssa and I did notfocus on the sexual and
reproductive health part, andthis is a sexual reproductive
(03:23):
health rights and justice part,I thought I would do my intro
to focus , um, more exclusivelyon some of the sexual and
reproductive health and rightsimpacts that we are going to
see due to this 90 day reviewperiod where we now have this
stop work order. So it's, firstthank you to Gut Institute who
did the math to figure out whatthis is going to mean for
(03:47):
people. We know on average that130,390 women get contraceptive
care each day under US fundedprograms. So then we can do the
math to see what it would meanif that service did not resume
during this 90 day reviewperiod. So over those 90 days,
(04:08):
that means we would see 11.7million women and girls being
denied access to contraceptivecare. That would mean 4.2
million will experienceunintended pregnancies and
8,340 will die fromcomplications during pregnancy
and childbirth. So we knowthat'll be devastating. And
(04:31):
with the loss of U-S-A-I-D ,this could be longer term than
90 days. So these devastatingimpacts could continue to grow.
The other thing that we'vetalked about on the podcast
quite a bit and re pros hassome briefs on is sexual and
reproductive health andhumanitarian settings. And a
(04:52):
really big player in that worldis the United Nations
Population Fund or U-N-F-P-A.
So I reached out to U-N-F-P-Ato get some if , to see if they
had an idea of what this stopwork order and this suspension
of US funded programs inhumanitarian spaces with
U-N-F-P-A would mean. Andthankfully, U-N-F-P-A got back
(05:14):
to me with this list. It's,it's long, y'all, it is gonna
be really devastating. But Ithink it's really important
that we look directly at it andhear what this is going to mean
to understand the scale and thescope of the loss of these
programs. So I'm gonna go aheadand read this whole list that
(05:37):
U-N-F-P-A sent me, and it just,it breaks my heart to read all
of the people who are going tobe impacted by this and what
this is going to mean for them.
So again, huge thank you toRachel at U-N-F-P-A for putting
this together for me. I reallyappreciate it and I appreciate
you and all of your hard workand everybody at U-N-F-P-A. So
(05:59):
thank you. Okay, deep breathy'all. It's, it's bleak. In
Afghanistan, over 9 millionbeneficiaries will not receive
maternal health and widerservices. And over 1700 female
national health workers will nolonger be employed. And it's
(06:20):
important to note thatAfghanistan is, the world has
the world's eighth highestmaternal mortality rate
services that will beinterrupted include those
provided by hundreds of mobilehealth teams, family health
houses and counseling centersin Bangladesh. Nearly 600,000
beneficiaries are at risk forlosing sexual and reproductive
(06:43):
health and gender-basedviolence and response services.
Life skills classes forthousands of ROA women and
youth living in Cox's Bazaarare being halted. Bangladesh's
reduction in maternal mortalityand teenage pregnancy rates
from the last few years couldstagnate with the loss of this
assistance and the CentralAfrican Republic life-changing
(07:06):
reproductive health servicesfor Sudanese refugees and
returnees as well as those hostcommunities will be stopped as
well . Clinical management ofrape for thousands of women and
girls who have been raped byour men in Sudan and Chad.
Life-saving reproductive healthservices will be interrupted,
affecting women among forciblyto place populations living in
(07:31):
refugee camps, reception sitesfor flood affected populations
and returnees and hostpopulations. And Gaza. 50,000
pregnant women will losecritical care as un FPAs.
Mobile health teams are forcedto halt operations. These teams
provide services through homeand shelter visits, especially
(07:52):
in the hardest hit northernareas. In addition, mobile
emergency obstetric andneonatal care units will be
affected as well as the supplyof medicines to 80 health
facilities and the continuedfunctioning of dozens of safe
spaces in Pakistan. 1.7 millionpeople, including 1.2 million
(08:14):
Afghan refugees, will loselife-saving sexual and
reproductive health servicesprovided by 62 health
facilities in Sudan and itssurrounding countries.
Thousands of displaced peoplewill lose emergency , sexual
and reproductive healthservices and gender-based
violence prevention andresponse services In Ukraine.
(08:34):
Around 640,000 women and girlswill be affected by cuts to
psychosocial support,gender-based violence and
prevention and responseservices, safe spaces, economic
empowerment programs providedby 45 mobile teams and 21 safe
spaces. And in Yemen, more than220,000 people displaced by
(08:57):
conflict or natural disasterswill lose access to lifesaving
emergency relief deliveries ofessential items. Y'all , this
is just looking at oneorganization's work in
humanitarian settings and it'sonly looking at sexual and
reproductive health serviceimpacts. This freeze on foreign
(09:20):
assistance is going to bedevastating. And the loss of
U-S-A-I-D if it doesn't comeback is , is going to just it
be devastating. So many peopleare going to lose their jobs,
whether they work directly withU-S-A-I-D or contractors.
People's health and lives areat stake in countries where US
(09:44):
development assistance is lifesaving and life changing. This
is a real crisis, y'all, and wedon't get into it in my
interview with Alyssa , but I'mjust gonna kind of put it up
front as a take action item tocall your Congress people ,
call all of them, tell them yousupport us foreign assistance
(10:07):
that you support U-S-A-I-D ,that you support you and FBA
and you want to make sure thattheir life changing and
lifesaving work continues. Thisis, this is a all hands on
deck, y'all. We need to calland make our voices heard and
tell them that this isimportant and that we need to
save these programs. Okay, withthat, let's turn to my
(10:32):
interview with Alyssa Milne totalk all about what is
happening at U-S-A-A-D rightnow. Okay, let's go to my
conversation with Alyssa. HiAlyssa. Thank you so much for
being here today. Hey
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Jenny, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Before we get started, would you like to take
a second and introduce yourselfand include your pronouns?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Definitely. So my name is Alyssa Mene . I am a
reporter at devex and I go byshe her.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Okay. As I have taken to having to do , uh,
since the new administration,everything is moving so fast,
especially on the topic we'regonna talk about today that I
think we need to just be clear.
We are recording this onFebruary 13th at noon. So we
know some things are gonnachange between when we're
recording and when people hearthis, but it's just important
(11:21):
to, like, everybody needs toknow when we are recording it.
We're , this is true as of whenwe record.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely. Things are changing so rapidly here.
It slowed down like ever soslightly, but I think the last
three weeks have definitelybeen the most fast paced of my
entire career in terms of likegoing to the shower, coming out
and expecting 50 signals. Andyou know what , what's happened
while those 15 minutes I wasthere?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Oh yeah. I can only imagine as somebody who like
does reporting on U-S-A-I-D-Imean there's always things
happening, but not like this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Exactly..
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay. So since this podcast is a repro podcast, and
like we've talked aboutinternational family planning
funding and things like that,but we've not necessarily done
a , like what is U-S-A-I-D andlike really talked about
U-S-A-I-D on its own. So maybethat's like a really good place
to start before we get intowhat is currently happening.
(12:13):
Um, and there's a lot ofmisinformation floating. So
what is U-S-A-I-D ?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, good question.
So U-S-A-I-D was created in1961, so this is kind of the
time JFK was president. Youknow, we had , um, a a lot of
different political issuesgoing on at the time, but
namely the Cold War, right? SoUSAID actually at its core was
created to kind of counterSoviet influence through
foreign assistance, which todaywe, we often think of as a bit
(12:38):
of us , the US' soft power. Soat the time, president Kennedy
kind of argued that the US hadboth a moral obligation to help
other countries across theworld, but also that the US
could benefit from what thatassistance or that soft power
could provide. So flash forwardmultiple decades, USAID has
expanded and grown over theyears. Um, before the last
(12:59):
couple of weeks, U USAID had astaff of more than 13,000
people. Two thirds of thosefolks worked overseas and the
agency helped tens of millions.
I mean, we're talking about,like you mentioned, any
reproductive healthcare , butalso things like emergency and
disaster response , uh, foodassistance, economic growth
activities, livelihoods,programming. So really across
(13:19):
the , um, gamut of foreignassistance, USAID is also the
biggest bilateral, or was thebiggest bilateral donor across
the world. So it really toucheseverything in the space.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, and I think that something we've talked
about on the podcast a lot ishumanitarian assistance. Like
the US was also outsized inhumanitarian assistance.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Definitely, I think made up about 40% between 40
and 50% of humanitarianresponse globally.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Okay. So as we said, it has been chaotic, honestly
from basically day one aroundforeign assistance. So that
started with the 90 day pause.
So what, what happened? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So exactly, it started with a foreign aid
freeze . So that was enactedwhen President Donald Trump
first took office. So this isliterally within hours of him ,
uh, you know, returning to theWhite House a couple days later
though there was a stop workorder. Um, and that made not
just funding freeze as it had acouple of days before, but work
now had to be stopped acrossthe world work that was
(14:21):
continually ongoing, justhalted. So after that, there
was a whirlwind of activity. Sothere was a congressional
notification stating that partsof USAID would be downsized and
absorbed into the US StateDepartment. Others would be
dissolved entirely. Uh,secretary of State, Marco Robio
also announced that he would beserving as USAID administrator.
(14:42):
And in between, there's justbeen wave after wave after wave
of furloughs and layoffs andadministrative leave notices,
both with staff at USAID andthroughout the implementing
partners that USAID works with.
So that's local organizationslike nonprofit groups, also big
for-profit contractors thatwork across DC and around the
world and everyone in between.
(15:04):
So in terms of kind of USAIDstaffers that also included
people in war zones. So I hadbeen talking to staff in
Ukraine and across the MiddleEast that were just telling me,
I have no idea if I have a job.
I've been locked out of thesystem. Um, and I don't know if
I'm supposed to go home andactually if I am supposed to go
home, I have no way ofcontacting , uh, the folks that
(15:24):
would help me get back. Sothat's kind of what's been
going on the last couple weeks.
The latest kind of where we'reat now is that last week there
was a notice sent out that onlast Friday by midnight, all
staff that were remaining atthe, at the agency would be
placed on administrative leave.
Now that was reversed due to acourt order. They're now placed
(15:46):
on administrative leave untiltomorrow night, Friday night at
midnight. And we don't knowwhat'll happen after that. So a
lot of folks are just waitingin the wing saying, do I have a
job? Do I not? Um, and whatwill happen after tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah. And like the scale of it is wild. You talked
about how there were over13,000 staff and that was cut
down to 300 to now 600. Is thatwhere the final numbers are?
Like that is bonkers.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And and one more point on that too, Jenny is
yes, your numbers are right, wethink so far. But this came
after, yeah, wave after waveagain, of people being placed
on leave being terminated. Thenthere were reports we saw an
internal email stating that itwould be about, I think the
number was between two 90 and300 folks, and then within 24
(16:35):
hours that was shifted and then600 folks, I think six 11 was
that number. So it was, it's alot of back and forth in terms
of who will stay, who willremain, what that agency will
look like. I mean, I think inthe, at least in the 300 figure
bit, that left 12 peoplefocusing on the entire African
continent. So that's a , atotal reshaping and reshifting
of not just US foreignassistance, but foreign
(16:56):
assistance globally. And thenyou've also got people who are
outside of the agency. So Imentioned earlier that, you
know, this is impacting otherorganizations that receive
money from USAID at Devex, we,we kind of crunched the numbers
last week and we estimate thatUSAID's partner organizations
are losing out of more than $60billion as a result of this
(17:17):
freeze. And the worst affectedorganizations lost more than
80% of their revenue overnight.
So again, you and I I think areboth based in DC and we're
seeing this across the citywhere there's thousands and
thousands of people. I thinkother estimates that I've seen
are anywhere from 15,000 to50,000 American jobs lost.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah. It's, it's been kind of devastating to
watch it ripple through ourcommunity and hearing all of
these orgs of people who aredoing amazing work getting
furloughed. It's, it's justlike, that's just like personal
friend impacts. Like not evencounting the lifesaving life
changing work they were doingand the people who are
(17:59):
suffering because of the lossof the programs.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, and we can definitely get into that and ,
and we should get into thattoo. But you think about these
ripple effects of these joblosses. And I can just tell
you, I guess a couple of thestories that I've heard. So
I've heard about 1 millioninsecticide treated bed nets
caught in a warehouse inEthiopia that just can't be
distributed. I've heard ofprograms across the world,
(18:24):
especially those in kind ofconflict hotspots being
completely suspended. So thatincludes a couple organizations
I've spoken with on both sidesof the Uganda Congo border that
are just simply unable toaddress women coming across the
border after being raped. Youknow, we know that in the
Congo, rape is often used as aweapon of war. There's no
(18:44):
mental health services thatwere previously being provided.
Children that are coming acrossthe border alone separated from
their family in , in , youknow, kind of their flea across
and leaving their, theircommunities. No more support
there either. We also reportedlast week about $500 million of
American grown food. So that'scoming from American farmers
(19:05):
meant to feed more than 36million people is again, now
stuck in ports and warehouses.
And that's rotting because itcan't go to the people who it's
meant to feed. So the , theimpacts, I think are pretty
extraordinary. There's alsoanother piece of this that I
think is interesting in termsof the humanitarian waivers
that have supposedly gone out.
(19:26):
Every organization that I'vetalked to, even if they've
gotten these waivers, says thatthey largely still can't do the
work because even if waiversare provided, that funding is
not coming through. So thatfunding is still largely
frozen. So let's say anorganization gets granted, oh,
actually, I'm so sorry, Jenny ,I should probably explain what
the waivers are.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, let's go back to that before we get into the
impacts we're seeing of groupsnot being able to implement the
waivers. Let's talk about likethe waivers and honestly even
what Rubio said about them.
'cause I also found that prettywild.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, so Secretary of State, Marco Rubio came out
with a waiver process. Um, hesaid, you know, kind of
organizations can apply forthis waiver. If they are
delivering lifesavinghumanitarian assistance, they
can apply for this waiver andbe exempt from the funding
freeze. Now, immediately afterthat announcement, kind of
organizations breathe a sigh ofrelief, they said, okay, this
(20:20):
will be our way to continue tohelp people that need it. This
will be our way to continuedoing our work. Flash forward
however many weeks, it feelslike five years since that
announcement was made out, butI guess it was a week or two.
And organizations most have notgotten those waivers, even if
they've applied for them, theones that have gotten the
waivers do not have the moneyto back them up so that that
(20:42):
tap is still dry. So you haveorganizations, for example,
that are doing HIV programmingacross the African continent,
and yes, they've been allowedto continue their work, but
there's no money. So they, theytruly cannot because they've
already floated , uh, theirstaffing for, you know, however
the last couple of weeks are. Ithink there's also this , um,
(21:03):
this difficulty of just folksnot being able to get
information. So as I mentionedearlier, USAID staff have
largely been gutted from theagency, right? So there's,
there's really no one left toanswer those questions and
queries from partners. Andwe're already hearing about
programs being terminatedacross the space. So you've got
all of this happening at thesame time. And to your point
(21:24):
and your question about , uh,secretary Rubio's comments
about it, I mean, I think thishas really been very upsetting
for a lot of the organizationsthat I've talked to because he
said, you know, I couldn't makethis clear. And organizations
are just, they're kind ofbaffled because they, they
don't understand it at all, andthey're not getting the
information that they say thatthey need to get.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, it's been pretty devastating, you know,
talking to groups who are, whoare caught up in this and, you
know, not just because theycan't get the money flowing,
but like supplies are getting ,um, held up, the supply chain
is falling apart. And likethat's always been one of those
(22:04):
things that has beenchallenging. And, you know, one
little kink in the supply chaincan really mess things up for a
long time and ensure that it'snot getting to the down service
people who really need it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, definitely.
And I , and I think that's partof the difficulty here is the
ecosystem of aid iscomplicated, right? I mean,
it's, it's one partnerorganization partnering with
another partner organization,partnering with another one so
that all of these, for example,like medications or food or
whatever it is, any sort oflifesaving assistance can
(22:35):
trickle downstream. And if oneorganization is stuck, doesn't
have the money, doesn't havethe waiver, et cetera, that
that kind of just breaks theentire process in half.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And I think the other one story that I read
that was, I think maybe a NewYork Times story that was, I
found also just like,especially devastating was the
people who were in the midst ofmedical trials who had like
devices left in or just can'tget the follow-up care they
need. Like that that is just soinhumane and wild to me that
(23:07):
that is being that, I mean thiswhole process, all of USAD
programs falling apart, butjust every story you hear, I
feel like has like new and moretragic details.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, there's a lot.
The impact is, is extreme. And,you know, I was at a hearing
yesterday on the hill and oneof the senators was just kind
of asking folks in the room,they had assembled a number of
eight experts and , uh,national security experts and,
and it was Senator Chris , andhe just said, is this
recoverable? You know, can we,can we undo the damage that's
(23:41):
been done? And the answer from, from every expert in the room
was, we can, but that window israpidly closing. So, you know,
time is really running out inorder to kind of undo a lot of
the, the damage that we've seenso far. I think something that
we've continued to hear andsomething that we're seeing
with the number of furloughslayoffs and and organizations
(24:02):
shuttering, is thatorganizations by and large
simply cannot last for the 90day review process. Most of
them, interestingly, a lot oforganizations will actually do
work first and then bereimbursed by the US
government. So we're hearingabout organizations that are
actually owed money fromNovember, December, and January
for work that they've alreadydone, and then they haven't
(24:24):
been paid for that. So they'rekind of like already in a void
or feeling a financial gap,which is not allowing them to,
to continue moving forward. Andthat's why you're seeing
furloughs and staff reductionsat such extreme scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's really hard to think of how it is . One of
those things that I feel likewe talk about with like the
global gag rule. A lot ofpeople seem to think the policy
is in place and things stop andthen it goes away and
everything like magically comesback. But that is never been
(24:56):
the case, right? So that isgonna be the same with all of
this. People on the ground aregonna look for new funding,
places are gonna close, peopleare that we're receiving
services no longer have trustedproviders. So, you know,
they're not gonna necessarilygo back to them. It , it's a
very complicated process ofwhen it goes away and when
(25:20):
things come back. 'cause it isnot just a light switch that
just like magically everythingis restored,
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Right? I mean, even think about it on the
individual level, right? It'slike you're, if you're
furloughed or you're let gofrom your nonprofit job and
you'd love to continue doingthe work that you were doing,
whether it be in reproductivehealth or, or whatever it might
be. But most organizations areexperiencing the same downfalls
as your last organization. Areyou gonna stay in the nonprofit
space? I mean, many folks thatI'm talking to are trying, like
(25:46):
saying, okay, well maybe I haveto go into the private sector
now. So this, this is a gradualerosion of folks that might
have been in the nonprofitspace earlier now kind of
shifting gears and doingsomething completely different.
Now, once that person goes andgets another job, it's not
like, okay, everything's fixed,they're gonna come back. I
mean, we're, we're seeingworkforces leaving people
leaving the sector and yeah, Imean, we'll, we'll see what
(26:08):
happens whether, you know, we,we've heard, again, we've seen
and heard reports of USAID'sabsorption into the state
department and what that lookslike. But going from 10,000 or
13,000, whatever the numbermight be to 300 or 600,
whatever the number might be,is a 95% decrease, right? So I
mean, just that staff alone,where are they gonna go? Right.
(26:28):
If not the nonprofit sector,which doesn't seem viable right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah. And it just makes me think of, obviously
you can't run that same, thesame scale of programs. What
programs are going to becompletely lost. I work in the,
the gender and internationalfamily planning, sexual
reproductive health space. Likeare they just not gonna do
those programs anymore? Kind offeels likely, right? Like it's
(26:54):
not like things will continueon a smaller scale. Things will
definitely be, some programsare just gonna go away .
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. I think we'll,
we'll see how, again,everything shakes out and what
programs or priorities will beemphasized. But I think what's
interesting is that this isreally different from the first
Trump administration, which had, um, you know, USAID under
Mark Green had a lot of reallygreat reform , uh, work done.
There was amplification oflocal partners kind of shifting
(27:24):
aid to get it to more smallergrassroots groups. There was
also a lot of work being donein the private sector. So
really like kind of enhancingand catalyzing the private
sectors in various countriesthat u USAID worked with. So
people really, I I think lookat Mark Green's tenure with
USAID as , you know, a lot ofgood work that that was done at
that time. This, what we'reseeing now under Trump's second
(27:47):
term is , is completelydifferent. So I can
hypothesize, but it's reallyhard to, to predict what might
be retained and what might notgoing forward. Especially
because, you know, for folksthat want a reform of usaid ,
which I think is frankly mostof the sector, right? I mean
everyone can kind of agree thatwe, we could do well in the
sector with reviews orrecalibrations or, you know,
(28:10):
just kind of rethinking andmaking sure that everything is
going to speed and, and workingas best as it can be the most
efficiently that it can be. Butyou know, without enough people
to put that process in place, Ido wonder what will happen next
.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I also think in, in that space, there's the gap
of public perception andreality. Like we know whenever
people are asked like how muchthey think goes to foreign
assistance, like not just UAAbut foreign assistance , it's
always like between like 10 and25% of the budget. And which is
(28:42):
so far out of step from thereality, which is less than 1%.
U-S-A-I-D is like half of apercent. So it's the , the
arguments of doing this to likesave money and like, you know,
cut government waste like is soout of step from where things
actually are. Not to say therearen't things that can't be
(29:05):
done, but like yeah. Bigpicture.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah. But I, I do think you've hit on a really
important point, Jenny , whichis , um, public perception of
foreign assistance versusreality of how much is spent.
So I , I was looking at acouple of polls that were taken
over the last few yearsrecently, and I think it was
something like 70% of peoplethought the US government spent
too much on governmentassistance, but like you said,
most people thought that wespent around a quarter of our
(29:29):
budget on foreign assistance.
Which is fair enough when youthink about like, okay, the US
does do so much across theworld, right? Yeah . Like we
talked top of the call aboutjust how big of a donor the US
government is, is, but inreality we actually give, you
know, comparatively a lot lessthan especially our Nordic
counterparts, for example, kindof leave the lead the charge in
(29:50):
terms of the percent, but um,still, I mean they're kind of
like just over 1%. So it's,it's not, it's not like others
are spending like crazy , um,but it just more so than the us
So yeah, I mean I find thatreally interesting. I think
there's, you know, foreign aidskepticism is real. Um, it's
been around and though I thinkthe bipartisan elements of
(30:10):
foreign aid, the nationalsecurity elements, the soft
power elements like we talkedabout have held true for a long
time. I mean, PEPFAR was, was aBush program, is a Bush
program. So, so I think yeah,there's a lot of kind of like
swirling information goingaround and that affects public
perception of USAID in general.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah. And even like thinking through like global
health, right? You know,fighting global diseases where
they are. So they don't comehere. Like I think there are so
many things that are broaderAmerican benefits that happen
through global assistance orforeign assistance. But I think
also falling into thatinformation gap goes back to a
(30:49):
conversation we had before westarted the call, which is
they're going after somethingthat is broadly not super
popular because people, so it'seasy to go after U-S-A-I-D, but
is this just like a gateway?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah. USAID for better or for worse is is like
you said, kind of a easytarget, but we're seeing kind
of across DC different federalagencies now kind of being in
the spotlight. I think theDepartment of Ed, there's been
a lot of other ones too. And,and I think, you know, what
I've been hearing from a lot offolks is that they feel like
USAID was the testing groundfor vast reductions in
(31:27):
government workforce. Andthough it was the first, it's,
it doesn't seem to be the lastto be affected in this way.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. Uh , this is all just thinking how it's
gonna ripple through DC just dso many people in DC work for
or with the government and somuch good is done by so many of
these programs that may just goaway, which I find personally
pretty devastating.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, I mean, I went to a, I think when, when the
stop work orders were firstannounced a couple days later,
there was like a gathering thatwas just like floated across
the internet of just likepeople coming together to talk
about everything and digest ittogether. And, and so I went
just to, to talk to folks andsee how people were holding up.
And it was pretty insane tojust see like so many different
(32:14):
tables of colleagues. You know,there was folks from a
nonprofit , folks from afor-profit contractor all in
the , the development space,but table after table after
table of people that wereeither for furloughed or
terminated, most of which were,were not actually at usaid. So
yeah, again, just speaks to theripple effects, like you were
saying. Well,
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And , and I think it's hard to understate not
just the devastation of beingfurloughed, but like some of
the people like real trauma forlike running these programs
that, that are seeing theirlife's work just like
dismantled. There are so manypeople I've talked to that I
can just see disillusionmentand like trauma for watching
(32:52):
something that they have caredso passionately for and fought
so hard to ensure that peopleare getting the services they
need just stop and be, bepainted in such a villainous
light in the conversations thatare being weaponized to
demonize U-S-A-I-D.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, I think something else I'm feeling is
also a bit of like survivor'sguilt too, among people that
have their jobs and are workingin different programs but can't
help the people that they werehoping to help. You know,
people that are just kind oflike, you know, I was doing X,
y, and Z before, but now I'mjust sitting at home and just
kind of like the impact thatthat has on folks I think is
(33:31):
another element of all of this,you know, and that that's kind
of adding to the fact thatthey, they don't know if
they're gonna be taken out ofcountry or , or the program
will halt or stop entirely. ButI do think when you're working
with , uh, communities on theground, you start to bear a bit
of responsibility for, forobviously their wellbeing
because that's what you'retrying to accomplish through
your job, right? So it's, it'smore complicated it that way.
(33:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So as things are moving very fast and there are
so many unknowns, what's next?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So like I said earlier, there's a couple of
different court cases that arenow running through DC at the
moment. So one of them, mycolleague is in right now,
, she should have somereporting on that later today .
So we'll, we'll see what shefinds during that, however many
hours long session that is. Butthe big thing that we're all
waiting for, at least us atdevex and , and talking to
(34:20):
folks and sources in the spaceis what happens after tomorrow
midnight, because that's thedeadline that's been given for
the remaining USAID staff rightnow to be halted from being
placed on administrative leave.
Now that could change with thecourt cases, but we don't know.
So that's kind of the biggestthing that we're looking at,
what happens with these legalchallenges, what happens to
(34:41):
USAID staff post tomorrow? Alot of this too is like what
happens to organizations aswell. So again, we talked about
waivers, we talked aboutfunding not coming in, how much
longer can folks last? I mean,every week we've heard wa more
waves of termination of awards,more waves of termination of
colleagues. So what does itlook like next week? I mean,
it's a moving target at themoment in terms of looking at
(35:03):
what the impact will be. I
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I was just thinking one thing we didn't say
explicitly, but maybe is, isworth mentioning that with the
conversation of U-S-A-A-D beingsubsumed under state is that it
was U-S-A-A-D was created byCongress. Like there's the,
like you can't just do that.
Like Congress created thisseparate department agency to
(35:27):
run this. So it , it just feelslike it would be missed if we
didn't like, clearly state thatthis is an important part of
this whole story.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, and this is definitely something that, that
you're hearing or I'm hearing alot from Congress members on
the Hill Democratic Congressmembers have really made this
like a talking point in termsof like, USAID was created by
Congress, it can only beremoved by Congress now .
There's so much that's happenedover the last three weeks that
seems to be out of the , um,the regular that I don't know
(35:55):
how it will change and yeah,and what things will happen
going forward and, and whatthat'll look like. I mean, I
think the thing though is thatthe democratic congress members
that are saying this are in theminority at the moment. So when
this does come to Congress moreformally will be in March,
right when there's, the federalbudget will be renegotiated.
(36:18):
Right now there's, you know,just kind of a hold until March
14th for the federal budget.
And that I think will be whenwe really start to see Congress
members come to the table andkind of bat out what the
foreign assistance budget willreally look like. Now, whether
USAID is part of state or not,there's still a foreign
assistance budget. And whatthat will look like will be
(36:39):
something that, that congressmembers will have to talk
about. And I don't wanna , youknow, there's a lot of
Republican congress membersthat have been really
supportive of foreignassistance in the past. It , it
just depends on kind of, Ithink the, the priorities that
come to the table this month,next month in the lead up to
that resolution being closed
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Again, just so much happening all at once to keep
your eye on. Alyssa , thank youso much for all of your great
reporting. I will definitely bekeeping close to it to make
sure that I know what all ishappening. But thank you for
the time and talking to ustoday.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Thank you so much and thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Okay. I hope you enjoyed , uh, that
conversation. It, it's hard tosay enjoy in this context. It's
pretty devastating what ishappening. But it was a really
great conversation and I'mreally grateful to Alyssa for
taking the time and this chaosof continue reporting on all ,
all these things that arehappening so rapidly to talk
(37:37):
with us about what ishappening. So thank you Alyssa
. And with that, I will seeeverybody next week. If you
have any questions, comments,or topics you would like us to
cover, always feel free toshoot me an email. You can
reach me at jenny jn nie@reprofightback.com or you
can find us on social media.
(37:57):
We're at re pros, fight back onFacebook and Twitter or re pros
FB on Instagram. If you loveour podcast and wanna make sure
more people find it, take thetime to rate and review us on
your favorite podcast platform.
Or if you wanna make sure tosupport the podcast, you can
also donate on our website atrepro fight back com . Thanks
(38:17):
all .
Welcome to Re Pros, fight Back a podcast on all
things related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice. Hey, re pros. This isMonday, Jenny , coming to you
with a quick update to thisweek's episode. Um, we recorded
the interview last week, sothere have been some changes
since it was recorded. Um, thisweek we are focusing on the
federal freeze on foreignassistance. Um, specifically we
(00:27):
focus on U-S-A-I-D and what thefreeze has meant to U-S-A-I-D
and program recipients and whythis is so horrible and what it
means going forward. We do talkabout that. There were some
court cases moving on and wewere waiting to hear rulings.
Um, so late Thursday night, afederal judge ruled that the
administration must restore thefunding that has been halted.
(00:49):
So that is amazing news. But asof recording on Monday at
three, I don't know if that ishappening yet. If the money has
been, has started to move andget to people, we know that the
government has until tomorrow,February 18th to show that it
is complying with the order.
So, you know, I debated whetherwe should just pull this
(01:10):
episode, but this, this courtorder, but I highly doubt this
is the last we're gonna hear ofattacks on U-S-A-I-D , whether
that means they're trying to,you know, subsume the whole
agency under the StateDepartment and gut a lot of the
programs, if it means that onlyspecific things are being gonna
be defunded. I just think it'sreally important that we have
(01:32):
this conversation to talk aboutwhat is happening at U-S-A-I-D
right now, because it is partof this bigger attack on the
federal government. And so it ,it was important to , to air
this episode anyway. And like Isaid, we don't know that the
government is actuallycomplying with the order yet.
So, you know , we should findout today when you are all are
listening on the 18th. But justknow, you know, we talk about
(01:57):
it while the freeze was stillin place before the judge's
ruling, but as of right now, wedon't know that anything has
necessarily changed. But I didwanna just flag at up top that
a judge has ruled theadministration must restore
that funding. Okay, with that,let's go into my intro. Hi, Ray
(02:17):
Rose . How's everybody doing?
I'm your host Jenny Wetter ,and my pronouns are she, her,
and apparently Cinder wanted tosay hi to y'all as well. I hope
everybody is hanging in there.
Okay, we're gonna do somethinga little different this week
than my usual introduction. Ihave a wonderful conversation
with Alyssa
(02:39):
U-S-A-I-D and what's happeningthere and the importance of
foreign assistance. And it's areally wonderful conversation.
It is really important that wetalk about development
assistance and why it is soimportant. It is one of the
three key pillars or three legson our foreign policy national
(03:01):
security stool , along withdiplomacy and defense. So
losing development assistancemakes the rest unstable. This
is why it is so important thatwe are having this conversation
about U-S-A-I-D and the broaderthings U-S-A-I-D does. But
since Alyssa and I did notfocus on the sexual and
reproductive health part, andthis is a sexual reproductive
(03:23):
health rights and justice part,I thought I would do my intro
to focus , um, more exclusivelyon some of the sexual and
reproductive health and rightsimpacts that we are going to
see due to this 90 day reviewperiod where we now have this
stop work order. So it's, firstthank you to Gut Institute who
did the math to figure out whatthis is going to mean for
(03:47):
people. We know on average that130,390 women get contraceptive
care each day under US fundedprograms. So then we can do the
math to see what it would meanif that service did not resume
during this 90 day reviewperiod. So over those 90 days,
(04:08):
that means we would see 11.7million women and girls being
denied access to contraceptivecare. That would mean 4.2
million will experienceunintended pregnancies and
8,340 will die fromcomplications during pregnancy
and childbirth. So we knowthat'll be devastating. And
(04:31):
with the loss of U-S-A-I-D ,this could be longer term than
90 days. So these devastatingimpacts could continue to grow.
The other thing that we'vetalked about on the podcast
quite a bit and re pros hassome briefs on is sexual and
reproductive health andhumanitarian settings. And a
(04:52):
really big player in that worldis the United Nations
Population Fund or U-N-F-P-A.
So I reached out to U-N-F-P-Ato get some if , to see if they
had an idea of what this stopwork order and this suspension
of US funded programs inhumanitarian spaces with
U-N-F-P-A would mean. Andthankfully, U-N-F-P-A got back
(05:14):
to me with this list. It's,it's long, y'all, it is gonna
be really devastating. But Ithink it's really important
that we look directly at it andhear what this is going to mean
to understand the scale and thescope of the loss of these
programs. So I'm gonna go aheadand read this whole list that
(05:37):
U-N-F-P-A sent me, and it just,it breaks my heart to read all
of the people who are going tobe impacted by this and what
this is going to mean for them.
So again, huge thank you toRachel at U-N-F-P-A for putting
this together for me. I reallyappreciate it and I appreciate
you and all of your hard workand everybody at U-N-F-P-A. So
(05:59):
thank you. Okay, deep breathy'all. It's, it's bleak. In
Afghanistan, over 9 millionbeneficiaries will not receive
maternal health and widerservices. And over 1700 female
national health workers will nolonger be employed. And it's
(06:20):
important to note thatAfghanistan is, the world has
the world's eighth highestmaternal mortality rate
services that will beinterrupted include those
provided by hundreds of mobilehealth teams, family health
houses and counseling centersin Bangladesh. Nearly 600,000
beneficiaries are at risk forlosing sexual and reproductive
(06:43):
health and gender-basedviolence and response services.
Life skills classes forthousands of ROA women and
youth living in Cox's Bazaarare being halted. Bangladesh's
reduction in maternal mortalityand teenage pregnancy rates
from the last few years couldstagnate with the loss of this
assistance and the CentralAfrican Republic life-changing
(07:06):
reproductive health servicesfor Sudanese refugees and
returnees as well as those hostcommunities will be stopped as
well . Clinical management ofrape for thousands of women and
girls who have been raped byour men in Sudan and Chad.
Life-saving reproductive healthservices will be interrupted,
affecting women among forciblyto place populations living in
(07:31):
refugee camps, reception sitesfor flood affected populations
and returnees and hostpopulations. And Gaza. 50,000
pregnant women will losecritical care as un FPAs.
Mobile health teams are forcedto halt operations. These teams
provide services through homeand shelter visits, especially
(07:52):
in the hardest hit northernareas. In addition, mobile
emergency obstetric andneonatal care units will be
affected as well as the supplyof medicines to 80 health
facilities and the continuedfunctioning of dozens of safe
spaces in Pakistan. 1.7 millionpeople, including 1.2 million
(08:14):
Afghan refugees, will loselife-saving sexual and
reproductive health servicesprovided by 62 health
facilities in Sudan and itssurrounding countries.
Thousands of displaced peoplewill lose emergency , sexual
and reproductive healthservices and gender-based
violence prevention andresponse services In Ukraine.
(08:34):
Around 640,000 women and girlswill be affected by cuts to
psychosocial support,gender-based violence and
prevention and responseservices, safe spaces, economic
empowerment programs providedby 45 mobile teams and 21 safe
spaces. And in Yemen, more than220,000 people displaced by
(08:57):
conflict or natural disasterswill lose access to lifesaving
emergency relief deliveries ofessential items. Y'all , this
is just looking at oneorganization's work in
humanitarian settings and it'sonly looking at sexual and
reproductive health serviceimpacts. This freeze on foreign
(09:20):
assistance is going to bedevastating. And the loss of
U-S-A-I-D if it doesn't comeback is , is going to just it
be devastating. So many peopleare going to lose their jobs,
whether they work directly withU-S-A-I-D or contractors.
People's health and lives areat stake in countries where US
(09:44):
development assistance is lifesaving and life changing. This
is a real crisis, y'all, and wedon't get into it in my
interview with Alyssa , but I'mjust gonna kind of put it up
front as a take action item tocall your Congress people ,
call all of them, tell them yousupport us foreign assistance
(10:07):
that you support U-S-A-I-D ,that you support you and FBA
and you want to make sure thattheir life changing and
lifesaving work continues. Thisis, this is a all hands on
deck, y'all. We need to calland make our voices heard and
tell them that this isimportant and that we need to
save these programs. Okay, withthat, let's turn to my
(10:32):
interview with Alyssa Milne totalk all about what is
happening at U-S-A-A-D rightnow. Okay, let's go to my
conversation with Alyssa. HiAlyssa. Thank you so much for
being here today. Hey
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Jenny, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Before we get started, would you like to take
a second and introduce yourselfand include your pronouns?
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Definitely. So my name is Alyssa Mene . I am a
reporter at devex and I go byshe her.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Okay. As I have taken to having to do , uh,
since the new administration,everything is moving so fast,
especially on the topic we'regonna talk about today that I
think we need to just be clear.
We are recording this onFebruary 13th at noon. So we
know some things are gonnachange between when we're
recording and when people hearthis, but it's just important
(11:21):
to, like, everybody needs toknow when we are recording it.
We're , this is true as of whenwe record.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely. Things are changing so rapidly here.
It slowed down like ever soslightly, but I think the last
three weeks have definitelybeen the most fast paced of my
entire career in terms of likegoing to the shower, coming out
and expecting 50 signals. Andyou know what , what's happened
while those 15 minutes I wasthere?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Oh yeah. I can only imagine as somebody who like
does reporting on U-S-A-I-D-Imean there's always things
happening, but not like this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay. So since this podcast is a repro podcast, and
like we've talked aboutinternational family planning
funding and things like that,but we've not necessarily done
a , like what is U-S-A-I-D andlike really talked about
U-S-A-I-D on its own. So maybethat's like a really good place
to start before we get intowhat is currently happening.
(12:13):
Um, and there's a lot ofmisinformation floating. So
what is U-S-A-I-D ?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, good question.
So U-S-A-I-D was created in1961, so this is kind of the
time JFK was president. Youknow, we had , um, a a lot of
different political issuesgoing on at the time, but
namely the Cold War, right? SoUSAID actually at its core was
created to kind of counterSoviet influence through
foreign assistance, which todaywe, we often think of as a bit
(12:38):
of us , the US' soft power. Soat the time, president Kennedy
kind of argued that the US hadboth a moral obligation to help
other countries across theworld, but also that the US
could benefit from what thatassistance or that soft power
could provide. So flash forwardmultiple decades, USAID has
expanded and grown over theyears. Um, before the last
(12:59):
couple of weeks, U USAID had astaff of more than 13,000
people. Two thirds of thosefolks worked overseas and the
agency helped tens of millions.
I mean, we're talking about,like you mentioned, any
reproductive healthcare , butalso things like emergency and
disaster response , uh, foodassistance, economic growth
activities, livelihoods,programming. So really across
(13:19):
the , um, gamut of foreignassistance, USAID is also the
biggest bilateral, or was thebiggest bilateral donor across
the world. So it really toucheseverything in the space.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, and I think that something we've talked
about on the podcast a lot ishumanitarian assistance. Like
the US was also outsized inhumanitarian assistance.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Definitely, I think made up about 40% between 40
and 50% of humanitarianresponse globally.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Okay. So as we said, it has been chaotic, honestly
from basically day one aroundforeign assistance. So that
started with the 90 day pause.
So what, what happened? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (13:59):
So exactly, it started with a foreign aid
freeze . So that was enactedwhen President Donald Trump
first took office. So this isliterally within hours of him ,
uh, you know, returning to theWhite House a couple days later
though there was a stop workorder. Um, and that made not
just funding freeze as it had acouple of days before, but work
now had to be stopped acrossthe world work that was
(14:21):
continually ongoing, justhalted. So after that, there
was a whirlwind of activity. Sothere was a congressional
notification stating that partsof USAID would be downsized and
absorbed into the US StateDepartment. Others would be
dissolved entirely. Uh,secretary of State, Marco Robio
also announced that he would beserving as USAID administrator.
(14:42):
And in between, there's justbeen wave after wave after wave
of furloughs and layoffs andadministrative leave notices,
both with staff at USAID andthroughout the implementing
partners that USAID works with.
So that's local organizationslike nonprofit groups, also big
for-profit contractors thatwork across DC and around the
world and everyone in between.
(15:04):
So in terms of kind of USAIDstaffers that also included
people in war zones. So I hadbeen talking to staff in
Ukraine and across the MiddleEast that were just telling me,
I have no idea if I have a job.
I've been locked out of thesystem. Um, and I don't know if
I'm supposed to go home andactually if I am supposed to go
home, I have no way ofcontacting , uh, the folks that
(15:24):
would help me get back. Sothat's kind of what's been
going on the last couple weeks.
The latest kind of where we'reat now is that last week there
was a notice sent out that onlast Friday by midnight, all
staff that were remaining atthe, at the agency would be
placed on administrative leave.
Now that was reversed due to acourt order. They're now placed
(15:46):
on administrative leave untiltomorrow night, Friday night at
midnight. And we don't knowwhat'll happen after that. So a
lot of folks are just waitingin the wing saying, do I have a
job? Do I not? Um, and whatwill happen after tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah. And like the scale of it is wild. You talked
about how there were over13,000 staff and that was cut
down to 300 to now 600. Is thatwhere the final numbers are?
Like that is bonkers.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And and one more point on that too, Jenny is
yes, your numbers are right, wethink so far. But this came
after, yeah, wave after waveagain, of people being placed
on leave being terminated. Thenthere were reports we saw an
internal email stating that itwould be about, I think the
number was between two 90 and300 folks, and then within 24
(16:35):
hours that was shifted and then600 folks, I think six 11 was
that number. So it was, it's alot of back and forth in terms
of who will stay, who willremain, what that agency will
look like. I mean, I think inthe, at least in the 300 figure
bit, that left 12 peoplefocusing on the entire African
continent. So that's a , atotal reshaping and reshifting
of not just US foreignassistance, but foreign
(16:56):
assistance globally. And thenyou've also got people who are
outside of the agency. So Imentioned earlier that, you
know, this is impacting otherorganizations that receive
money from USAID at Devex, we,we kind of crunched the numbers
last week and we estimate thatUSAID's partner organizations
are losing out of more than $60billion as a result of this
(17:17):
freeze. And the worst affectedorganizations lost more than
80% of their revenue overnight.
So again, you and I I think areboth based in DC and we're
seeing this across the citywhere there's thousands and
thousands of people. I thinkother estimates that I've seen
are anywhere from 15,000 to50,000 American jobs lost.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah. It's, it's been kind of devastating to
watch it ripple through ourcommunity and hearing all of
these orgs of people who aredoing amazing work getting
furloughed. It's, it's justlike, that's just like personal
friend impacts. Like not evencounting the lifesaving life
changing work they were doingand the people who are
(17:59):
suffering because of the lossof the programs.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, and we can definitely get into that and ,
and we should get into thattoo. But you think about these
ripple effects of these joblosses. And I can just tell
you, I guess a couple of thestories that I've heard. So
I've heard about 1 millioninsecticide treated bed nets
caught in a warehouse inEthiopia that just can't be
distributed. I've heard ofprograms across the world,
(18:24):
especially those in kind ofconflict hotspots being
completely suspended. So thatincludes a couple organizations
I've spoken with on both sidesof the Uganda Congo border that
are just simply unable toaddress women coming across the
border after being raped. Youknow, we know that in the
Congo, rape is often used as aweapon of war. There's no
(18:44):
mental health services thatwere previously being provided.
Children that are coming acrossthe border alone separated from
their family in , in , youknow, kind of their flea across
and leaving their, theircommunities. No more support
there either. We also reportedlast week about $500 million of
American grown food. So that'scoming from American farmers
(19:05):
meant to feed more than 36million people is again, now
stuck in ports and warehouses.
And that's rotting because itcan't go to the people who it's
meant to feed. So the , theimpacts, I think are pretty
extraordinary. There's alsoanother piece of this that I
think is interesting in termsof the humanitarian waivers
that have supposedly gone out.
(19:26):
Every organization that I'vetalked to, even if they've
gotten these waivers, says thatthey largely still can't do the
work because even if waiversare provided, that funding is
not coming through. So thatfunding is still largely
frozen. So let's say anorganization gets granted, oh,
actually, I'm so sorry, Jenny ,I should probably explain what
the waivers are.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, let's go back to that before we get into the
impacts we're seeing of groupsnot being able to implement the
waivers. Let's talk about likethe waivers and honestly even
what Rubio said about them.
'cause I also found that prettywild.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, so Secretary of State, Marco Rubio came out
with a waiver process. Um, hesaid, you know, kind of
organizations can apply forthis waiver. If they are
delivering lifesavinghumanitarian assistance, they
can apply for this waiver andbe exempt from the funding
freeze. Now, immediately afterthat announcement, kind of
organizations breathe a sigh ofrelief, they said, okay, this
(20:20):
will be our way to continue tohelp people that need it. This
will be our way to continuedoing our work. Flash forward
however many weeks, it feelslike five years since that
announcement was made out, butI guess it was a week or two.
And organizations most have notgotten those waivers, even if
they've applied for them, theones that have gotten the
waivers do not have the moneyto back them up so that that
(20:42):
tap is still dry. So you haveorganizations, for example,
that are doing HIV programmingacross the African continent,
and yes, they've been allowedto continue their work, but
there's no money. So they, theytruly cannot because they've
already floated , uh, theirstaffing for, you know, however
the last couple of weeks are. Ithink there's also this , um,
(21:03):
this difficulty of just folksnot being able to get
information. So as I mentionedearlier, USAID staff have
largely been gutted from theagency, right? So there's,
there's really no one left toanswer those questions and
queries from partners. Andwe're already hearing about
programs being terminatedacross the space. So you've got
all of this happening at thesame time. And to your point
(21:24):
and your question about , uh,secretary Rubio's comments
about it, I mean, I think thishas really been very upsetting
for a lot of the organizationsthat I've talked to because he
said, you know, I couldn't makethis clear. And organizations
are just, they're kind ofbaffled because they, they
don't understand it at all, andthey're not getting the
information that they say thatthey need to get.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, it's been pretty devastating, you know,
talking to groups who are, whoare caught up in this and, you
know, not just because theycan't get the money flowing,
but like supplies are getting ,um, held up, the supply chain
is falling apart. And likethat's always been one of those
(22:04):
things that has beenchallenging. And, you know, one
little kink in the supply chaincan really mess things up for a
long time and ensure that it'snot getting to the down service
people who really need it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, definitely.
And I , and I think that's partof the difficulty here is the
ecosystem of aid iscomplicated, right? I mean,
it's, it's one partnerorganization partnering with
another partner organization,partnering with another one so
that all of these, for example,like medications or food or
whatever it is, any sort oflifesaving assistance can
(22:35):
trickle downstream. And if oneorganization is stuck, doesn't
have the money, doesn't havethe waiver, et cetera, that
that kind of just breaks theentire process in half.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
And I think the other one story that I read
that was, I think maybe a NewYork Times story that was, I
found also just like,especially devastating was the
people who were in the midst ofmedical trials who had like
devices left in or just can'tget the follow-up care they
need. Like that that is just soinhumane and wild to me that
(23:07):
that is being that, I mean thiswhole process, all of USAD
programs falling apart, butjust every story you hear, I
feel like has like new and moretragic details.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, there's a lot.
The impact is, is extreme. And,you know, I was at a hearing
yesterday on the hill and oneof the senators was just kind
of asking folks in the room,they had assembled a number of
eight experts and , uh,national security experts and,
and it was Senator Chris , andhe just said, is this
recoverable? You know, can we,can we undo the damage that's
(23:41):
been done? And the answer from, from every expert in the room
was, we can, but that window israpidly closing. So, you know,
time is really running out inorder to kind of undo a lot of
the, the damage that we've seenso far. I think something that
we've continued to hear andsomething that we're seeing
with the number of furloughslayoffs and and organizations
(24:02):
shuttering, is thatorganizations by and large
simply cannot last for the 90day review process. Most of
them, interestingly, a lot oforganizations will actually do
work first and then bereimbursed by the US
government. So we're hearingabout organizations that are
actually owed money fromNovember, December, and January
for work that they've alreadydone, and then they haven't
(24:24):
been paid for that. So they'rekind of like already in a void
or feeling a financial gap,which is not allowing them to,
to continue moving forward. Andthat's why you're seeing
furloughs and staff reductionsat such extreme scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's really hard to think of how it is . One of
those things that I feel likewe talk about with like the
global gag rule. A lot ofpeople seem to think the policy
is in place and things stop andthen it goes away and
everything like magically comesback. But that is never been
(24:56):
the case, right? So that isgonna be the same with all of
this. People on the ground aregonna look for new funding,
places are gonna close, peopleare that we're receiving
services no longer have trustedproviders. So, you know,
they're not gonna necessarilygo back to them. It , it's a
very complicated process ofwhen it goes away and when
(25:20):
things come back. 'cause it isnot just a light switch that
just like magically everythingis restored,
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Right? I mean, even think about it on the
individual level, right? It'slike you're, if you're
furloughed or you're let gofrom your nonprofit job and
you'd love to continue doingthe work that you were doing,
whether it be in reproductivehealth or, or whatever it might
be. But most organizations areexperiencing the same downfalls
as your last organization. Areyou gonna stay in the nonprofit
space? I mean, many folks thatI'm talking to are trying, like
(25:46):
saying, okay, well maybe I haveto go into the private sector
now. So this, this is a gradualerosion of folks that might
have been in the nonprofitspace earlier now kind of
shifting gears and doingsomething completely different.
Now, once that person goes andgets another job, it's not
like, okay, everything's fixed,they're gonna come back. I
mean, we're, we're seeingworkforces leaving people
leaving the sector and yeah, Imean, we'll, we'll see what
(26:08):
happens whether, you know, we,we've heard, again, we've seen
and heard reports of USAID'sabsorption into the state
department and what that lookslike. But going from 10,000 or
13,000, whatever the numbermight be to 300 or 600,
whatever the number might be,is a 95% decrease, right? So I
mean, just that staff alone,where are they gonna go? Right.
(26:28):
If not the nonprofit sector,which doesn't seem viable right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Yeah. And it just makes me think of, obviously
you can't run that same, thesame scale of programs. What
programs are going to becompletely lost. I work in the,
the gender and internationalfamily planning, sexual
reproductive health space. Likeare they just not gonna do
those programs anymore? Kind offeels likely, right? Like it's
(26:54):
not like things will continueon a smaller scale. Things will
definitely be, some programsare just gonna go away .
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, I think that's definitely true. I think we'll,
we'll see how, again,everything shakes out and what
programs or priorities will beemphasized. But I think what's
interesting is that this isreally different from the first
Trump administration, which had, um, you know, USAID under
Mark Green had a lot of reallygreat reform , uh, work done.
There was amplification oflocal partners kind of shifting
(27:24):
aid to get it to more smallergrassroots groups. There was
also a lot of work being donein the private sector. So
really like kind of enhancingand catalyzing the private
sectors in various countriesthat u USAID worked with. So
people really, I I think lookat Mark Green's tenure with
USAID as , you know, a lot ofgood work that that was done at
that time. This, what we'reseeing now under Trump's second
(27:47):
term is , is completelydifferent. So I can
hypothesize, but it's reallyhard to, to predict what might
be retained and what might notgoing forward. Especially
because, you know, for folksthat want a reform of usaid ,
which I think is frankly mostof the sector, right? I mean
everyone can kind of agree thatwe, we could do well in the
sector with reviews orrecalibrations or, you know,
(28:10):
just kind of rethinking andmaking sure that everything is
going to speed and, and workingas best as it can be the most
efficiently that it can be. Butyou know, without enough people
to put that process in place, Ido wonder what will happen next
.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I also think in, in that space, there's the gap
of public perception andreality. Like we know whenever
people are asked like how muchthey think goes to foreign
assistance, like not just UAAbut foreign assistance , it's
always like between like 10 and25% of the budget. And which is
(28:42):
so far out of step from thereality, which is less than 1%.
U-S-A-I-D is like half of apercent. So it's the , the
arguments of doing this to likesave money and like, you know,
cut government waste like is soout of step from where things
actually are. Not to say therearen't things that can't be
(29:05):
done, but like yeah. Bigpicture.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah. But I, I do think you've hit on a really
important point, Jenny , whichis , um, public perception of
foreign assistance versusreality of how much is spent.
So I , I was looking at acouple of polls that were taken
over the last few yearsrecently, and I think it was
something like 70% of peoplethought the US government spent
too much on governmentassistance, but like you said,
most people thought that wespent around a quarter of our
(29:29):
budget on foreign assistance.
Which is fair enough when youthink about like, okay, the US
does do so much across theworld, right? Yeah . Like we
talked top of the call aboutjust how big of a donor the US
government is, is, but inreality we actually give, you
know, comparatively a lot lessthan especially our Nordic
counterparts, for example, kindof leave the lead the charge in
(29:50):
terms of the percent, but um,still, I mean they're kind of
like just over 1%. So it's,it's not, it's not like others
are spending like crazy , um,but it just more so than the us
So yeah, I mean I find thatreally interesting. I think
there's, you know, foreign aidskepticism is real. Um, it's
been around and though I thinkthe bipartisan elements of
(30:10):
foreign aid, the nationalsecurity elements, the soft
power elements like we talkedabout have held true for a long
time. I mean, PEPFAR was, was aBush program, is a Bush
program. So, so I think yeah,there's a lot of kind of like
swirling information goingaround and that affects public
perception of USAID in general.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah. And even like thinking through like global
health, right? You know,fighting global diseases where
they are. So they don't comehere. Like I think there are so
many things that are broaderAmerican benefits that happen
through global assistance orforeign assistance. But I think
also falling into thatinformation gap goes back to a
(30:49):
conversation we had before westarted the call, which is
they're going after somethingthat is broadly not super
popular because people, so it'seasy to go after U-S-A-I-D, but
is this just like a gateway?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah. USAID for better or for worse is is like
you said, kind of a easytarget, but we're seeing kind
of across DC different federalagencies now kind of being in
the spotlight. I think theDepartment of Ed, there's been
a lot of other ones too. And,and I think, you know, what
I've been hearing from a lot offolks is that they feel like
USAID was the testing groundfor vast reductions in
(31:27):
government workforce. Andthough it was the first, it's,
it doesn't seem to be the lastto be affected in this way.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah. Uh , this is all just thinking how it's
gonna ripple through DC just dso many people in DC work for
or with the government and somuch good is done by so many of
these programs that may just goaway, which I find personally
pretty devastating.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, I mean, I went to a, I think when, when the
stop work orders were firstannounced a couple days later,
there was like a gathering thatwas just like floated across
the internet of just likepeople coming together to talk
about everything and digest ittogether. And, and so I went
just to, to talk to folks andsee how people were holding up.
And it was pretty insane tojust see like so many different
(32:14):
tables of colleagues. You know,there was folks from a
nonprofit , folks from afor-profit contractor all in
the , the development space,but table after table after
table of people that wereeither for furloughed or
terminated, most of which were,were not actually at usaid. So
yeah, again, just speaks to theripple effects, like you were
saying. Well,
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And , and I think it's hard to understate not
just the devastation of beingfurloughed, but like some of
the people like real trauma forlike running these programs
that, that are seeing theirlife's work just like
dismantled. There are so manypeople I've talked to that I
can just see disillusionmentand like trauma for watching
(32:52):
something that they have caredso passionately for and fought
so hard to ensure that peopleare getting the services they
need just stop and be, bepainted in such a villainous
light in the conversations thatare being weaponized to
demonize U-S-A-I-D.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, I think something else I'm feeling is
also a bit of like survivor'sguilt too, among people that
have their jobs and are workingin different programs but can't
help the people that they werehoping to help. You know,
people that are just kind oflike, you know, I was doing X,
y, and Z before, but now I'mjust sitting at home and just
kind of like the impact thatthat has on folks I think is
(33:31):
another element of all of this,you know, and that that's kind
of adding to the fact thatthey, they don't know if
they're gonna be taken out ofcountry or , or the program
will halt or stop entirely. ButI do think when you're working
with , uh, communities on theground, you start to bear a bit
of responsibility for, forobviously their wellbeing
because that's what you'retrying to accomplish through
your job, right? So it's, it'smore complicated it that way.
(33:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So as things are moving very fast and there are
so many unknowns, what's next?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So like I said earlier, there's a couple of
different court cases that arenow running through DC at the
moment. So one of them, mycolleague is in right now,
So we'll, we'll see what shefinds during that, however many
hours long session that is. Butthe big thing that we're all
waiting for, at least us atdevex and , and talking to
(34:20):
folks and sources in the spaceis what happens after tomorrow
midnight, because that's thedeadline that's been given for
the remaining USAID staff rightnow to be halted from being
placed on administrative leave.
Now that could change with thecourt cases, but we don't know.
So that's kind of the biggestthing that we're looking at,
what happens with these legalchallenges, what happens to
(34:41):
USAID staff post tomorrow? Alot of this too is like what
happens to organizations aswell. So again, we talked about
waivers, we talked aboutfunding not coming in, how much
longer can folks last? I mean,every week we've heard wa more
waves of termination of awards,more waves of termination of
colleagues. So what does itlook like next week? I mean,
it's a moving target at themoment in terms of looking at
(35:03):
what the impact will be. I
Speaker 1 (35:05):
I was just thinking one thing we didn't say
explicitly, but maybe is, isworth mentioning that with the
conversation of U-S-A-A-D beingsubsumed under state is that it
was U-S-A-A-D was created byCongress. Like there's the,
like you can't just do that.
Like Congress created thisseparate department agency to
(35:27):
run this. So it , it just feelslike it would be missed if we
didn't like, clearly state thatthis is an important part of
this whole story.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, and this is definitely something that, that
you're hearing or I'm hearing alot from Congress members on
the Hill Democratic Congressmembers have really made this
like a talking point in termsof like, USAID was created by
Congress, it can only beremoved by Congress now .
There's so much that's happenedover the last three weeks that
seems to be out of the , um,the regular that I don't know
(35:55):
how it will change and yeah,and what things will happen
going forward and, and whatthat'll look like. I mean, I
think the thing though is thatthe democratic congress members
that are saying this are in theminority at the moment. So when
this does come to Congress moreformally will be in March,
right when there's, the federalbudget will be renegotiated.
(36:18):
Right now there's, you know,just kind of a hold until March
14th for the federal budget.
And that I think will be whenwe really start to see Congress
members come to the table andkind of bat out what the
foreign assistance budget willreally look like. Now, whether
USAID is part of state or not,there's still a foreign
assistance budget. And whatthat will look like will be
(36:39):
something that, that congressmembers will have to talk
about. And I don't wanna , youknow, there's a lot of
Republican congress membersthat have been really
supportive of foreignassistance in the past. It , it
just depends on kind of, Ithink the, the priorities that
come to the table this month,next month in the lead up to
that resolution being closed
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Again, just so much happening all at once to keep
your eye on. Alyssa , thank youso much for all of your great
reporting. I will definitely bekeeping close to it to make
sure that I know what all ishappening. But thank you for
the time and talking to ustoday.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Thank you so much and thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Okay. I hope you enjoyed , uh, that
conversation. It, it's hard tosay enjoy in this context. It's
pretty devastating what ishappening. But it was a really
great conversation and I'mreally grateful to Alyssa for
taking the time and this chaosof continue reporting on all ,
all these things that arehappening so rapidly to talk
(37:37):
with us about what ishappening. So thank you Alyssa
. And with that, I will seeeverybody next week. If you
have any questions, comments,or topics you would like us to
cover, always feel free toshoot me an email. You can
reach me at jenny jn nie@reprofightback.com or you
can find us on social media.
(37:57):
We're at re pros, fight back onFacebook and Twitter or re pros
FB on Instagram. If you loveour podcast and wanna make sure
more people find it, take thetime to rate and review us on
your favorite podcast platform.
Or if you wanna make sure tosupport the podcast, you can
also donate on our website atrepro fight back com . Thanks
(38:17):
all .
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