For their part, UN agencies have been scrambling to revise their operations, make strategic cuts, seek funding elsewhere, and appeal to the administration to restore US support.
Representation Pic/istock
Trump administration freezes on US foreign aid have led many United Nations organisations to cut staff, budgets and services in places as diverse as Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine and far beyond.
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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lamented the “severe cuts” and cited some fallout last week: Over nine million people in Afghanistan will miss out on health and protection services; cash allocations that helped one million people in Ukraine last year have been suspended; funding for programmes for people fleeing Sudan have run out, among other things.
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Many independent NGOs—some that work with the United Nations—have cited many project closures because of the US administration’s decision to eliminate more than 90 per cent of foreign aid contracts, cut some USD 60 billion in funding, and terminate some 10,000 contracts worldwide involving the US Agency for International Development, USAID.
For their part, UN agencies have been scrambling to revise their operations, make strategic cuts, seek funding elsewhere, and appeal to the administration to restore US support.
Impact on UN bodies
UNHCR: The UN refugee agency, which got over 40 per cent of its nearly $5 billion budget last year from the United States, said that the pause in US funding allocations have affected operations and its “first cost saving efforts” will involve cutting $300 million in planned activities.
The International Organisation for Migration: This organisation—run by Amy Pope of the United States—got more than 40 per cent of its $3.4 billion budget in 2023 from the US, and said it was “acting accordingly” in response to the pause in funding that is affecting staff and operations.
WHO: The Trump administration has been especially tough with the World Health Organisation. WHO says a global measles and rubella lab network is “at risk of collapse” because its cost of about $8 million a year is entirely funded by the US. The funding cuts have affected the global response to mpox, and WHO has tapped its own emergency funds to fill gaps left in the response to Ebola in Uganda.
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