June 17 (UPI) — The Trump administration’s merger of the U.S. Agency for International Development into the State Department has nonprofit organizations wondering if their programs will continue.
A State Department spokesperson told UPI that the United States expects other countries to increase their roles in delivering life-saving aid around the globe.
“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, Secretary [Marco] Rubio is taking a historic step in realigning how the United States delivers foreign aid and implements its America First Foreign Policy to ensure foreign assistance advances U.S. national interests,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The United States is not ceasing foreign assistance; we are aligning our programs to ensure they are more effective and aligned with our national interests.”
The spokesperson added that “essential life-saving and humanitarian programs” will continue. The State Department is taking up the responsibility of the limited USAID programming that will remain.
The cuts to USAID that began in January leave more than 10,000 workers of various statuses at risk of losing their jobs. Last week, Rubio ordered that all USAID employees abroad be terminated as the reorganization of the agency’s responsibilities nears its September deadline.
The State Department plans to hire new staff to administer its USAID responsibilities. According to a report by the Office of the Inspector General in May, Rubio has approved hiring 308 U.S. direct-hire staff, 370 locally employed staff — local to the area of service — and 40 personal service contractors.
Last week, the U.S. House approved a recissions package that will rescind funds previously approved by Congress. The package rescinded $9.4 billion, including $8.3 billion in USAID funding.
The bill passed by a 214-212 vote. Four Republicans and 208 Democrats voted against it.
Some aid organizations that have contracts with or receive grant funding from USAID remain uncertain about their status with the deadline drawing near. Contract renewals that would normally be in motion are left unaddressed and aid workers located around the world continue to provide service not knowing if it will abruptly end.
Justin Fugle, head of U.S. government policy for Plan International, told UPI there is concern that the State Department is not hiring an adequate number of personnel to support worldwide aid programming.
“The programs are not running normally at all,” he said. “There just isn’t the ability yet to start new programs but the need is there. We think that there’s going to be a gap, still, of several months before the State Department will be able to get programs running again. But what happens in the meantime? What happens to folks who need these services urgently?”
Plan International, a non-government organization that focuses on gender inequality issues and the education of girls around the world has closed nearly all of its programs that involved the U.S. government. It has also laid off employees due to the Trump administration’s handling of USAID.
Fugle said his organization is hopeful the administration will see the value in its programs and change course.
“We are hoping that they will add some of those [programs] back in,” Fugle said. “They tend to cut things, realize they cut too far and they will sort of pull back to some extent.”
Plan International operated a program to help girls in Nepal graduate with the goal of keeping 800,000 girls in school. The program was funded by USAID. It is among the many programs USAID funded relating to girls’ education.
All of the girls’ education programs were cut.
A 2018 report from the World Bank Group said the world’s economy loses out on $15 trillion to $30 trillion due to girls not completing 12 years of education.
McKinsey Global Institute’s 2015 report projected that $12 trillion could have been added to the global gross domestic product by 2025 if all countries matched the progress toward gender parity with the best performing country in their region.
“If the idea is to make America more prosperous, the data is there,” Fugle said. “This program would meet your goals. But they cancelled them all anyway. Not just ours. All the girls’ education programs. We still haven’t gotten a good explanation.”
Fugle is pushing for the State Department to extend all currently-running programs to be extended by six months so they can continue until the transition of USAID responsibilities is theoretically completed. However, he does not believe the critical work USAID has done will never be fully revived as its thousands of skilled workers are forced to find new careers.
“They have this great skill set. I suppose many of them are finding work doing something else internationally oriented which means that later you can’t put this back together,” he said. “The staff who knew how to do these things have to move on with their lives. You won’t be able to bring the capability back into the government and run these programs later.”
