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The attack on USAID is an irresponsible and dangerous approach to institutional change

We should all be demanding the reinstatement of the agency and its staff, the security of its classified information, and its relative independence from the executive branch.

Three men take part in a sewing training against a tent wall made of sewn-together USAID sacks in Darfur, Sudan, in 2007.
Three men take part in a sewing training against a tent wall made of sewn-together USAID sacks in Darfur, Sudan, in 2007.Read moreMalka Older

As anyone with a passing knowledge of economics or business management could tell you, any pause in cash flow, especially one of uncertain duration, will have disproportionate effects. Uncertainty and chaos mean it’s impossible to plan; opportunities are lost, economies of scale dissolve. There are long-term commitments, like office rent and salary, that can quickly become untenable, and once leases and staff are lost, it becomes more expensive to replace them than it would have been to keep them.

By the time this is published, the freeze on foreign aid may have become a permanent, probably illegal dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), or it may have been rescinded, at least in part. Regardless, enormous damage has already been done. It is normal, if not ideal (more on that in a moment), for a new administration to adjust aid priorities; there is nothing normal about freezing all aid in the meantime.

There has already been coverage of the immediate impacts of the freeze, yet, because of the vast scale of USAID’s work, most of these stories can give only fragments of the full effects. The United States has broken its commitments without warning, which means grantees and sub-grantees are being left without the means to fulfill contracts, care for staff, or maintain organizational integrity.

An informal and indicative survey of affected organizations by the Accountability Lab, a nonprofit working on grassroots governance efforts, found that nearly 50% of the nonprofits that responded did not have the financial resources to survive three months. Trying to restart after the break would be shatteringly inefficient and expensive, if it is even possible. Rebuilding the damaged trust with employees, local organizations, and communities would be even harder.

Foreign aid is supposed to support the reputation and alliances of the United States.

There’s an additional layer of betrayal to organizations working on governance, internet freedom, anti-corruption, and human rights in repressive contexts. Suddenly stopping work will put these organizations at risk of being identified as recipients of U.S. government funds, potentially making them targets for harassment, imprisonment, or worse.

For me, this is personal. During my decade of work in international relief and development, I worked on Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) (no longer called that) programs in various parts of the world, including a large program for water and sanitation, hygiene promotion, protection, and nonfood item distribution in Darfur, Sudan, in the 2000s. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have to leave with no warning, deserting the people we worked with, and abandoning hard-earned successes to fall apart.

I know people who are affected by the freeze, either because they are losing their lifeline or because they’re losing their job. I know people who worked on FEWS NET, the famine early warning system that went offline with the freeze; I referred to it myself when working on proposals. And speaking of proposals, I’m still close enough to feel the insult, on top of the injury, in the U.S. State Department press release that claims USAID programs ran on “autopilot,” disrespecting the immense amount of work done by grantee and grantor alike in keeping those programs running.

The suddenness of the closure makes it more likely that rich and unscrupulous actors will fill that vacuum.

That personal experience is also why I reference efficiency and expense here. Despite the fact that foreign aid is a minuscule part of the United States budget, nonprofits are expected to justify their expenditures with everything from debatably accurate new public management techniques to randomized controlled trials of dubious value. Concern from the U.S. government, as well as other donors, to prove aid is worthwhile meant onerous proposal and report writing, and often suboptimal program design to fit into ideas about efficiency.

My trained concern about economic impact is out of date, however. The executive order putting the hold on foreign aid doesn’t mention the cost at all. It doesn’t suggest that the money would be better used domestically, or that the private sector would automatically be better at aid provision. Instead, the executive order claims that “the United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” do damage by “promoting ideas.”

The justification for not helping others is no longer capitalist (we can’t afford it — even though really we can) but fascist (we control what people are allowed to think).

This isn’t, of course, the first time foreign aid has been influenced by ideology. Famously, the “global gag rule,” which prevented any health organization receiving U.S. funding to so much as mention abortion, has been regularly reinstated by every Republican president, despite evidence showing the rule increases abortions and unwanted pregnancies.

More subtly, foreign aid is supposed to support the reputation and alliances of the United States. When I worked on that OFDA program in Darfur, the only idea we promoted was handwashing (with soap!), but we were also required to carry out “visibility”: slapping the USAID logo on everything so people would know who was paying for their latrines.

Cutting off USAID programming is therefore cutting off an avenue of U.S. soft power, one that hasn’t always been used for good. The suddenness of the closure makes it more likely that rich and unscrupulous actors — other political entities, large corporations, and possibly evangelical movements of one kind or another — will fill that vacuum, while more responsible donors are busy raising funds and carrying out due diligence.

The attack on USAID is a vastly irresponsible and dangerous approach to institutional change. We should all be demanding the reinstatement of the agency and its staff, the continued security of its classified information, and its relative independence from the executive branch.

But the urgency of this situation is also a reminder that the sort of outsize influence USAID wielded, and others continue to wield, was never good for the aid industry. There has been talk of the importance of localization, or putting more power and decision-making in the hands of those closest to the need, for decades; perhaps this demonstration of fickleness will push greater action toward that goal.

Now also would be a fantastic time for some sovereign debt relief — for example, that of Haiti, which stems primarily from the French demand for it to pay back the assets of enslavers. This would allow lower- and middle-income countries more liquidity to deal with their needs.

There is still a role for some international aid — not because of corruption (as a U.S. citizen, I’m hardly in the position at the moment to lecture other countries about governmental corruption), but because of repression (although, probably ditto). Many of the paused USAID programs deal with governance, human rights, and other things many governments are reluctant to fund within their own borders. Other funders need to support these programs where they can. The United Nations, which so far has issued a not-so-strongly worded statement, should use the Central Emergency Relief Fund, or create and fundraise for a new version of it, to mitigate some of the damage.

Most of all, international aid will still be necessary because we all need help sometimes. When I researched Hurricane Katrina and the Tohoku tsunami — two disasters that took place in extremely wealthy countries — for my dissertation, I found that while the national governments offered the most resources, it was often mutual aid — city-to-city or state-to-state — that was most helpful.

When I imagine a better future for aid, I imagine a mutual, balanced system; one in which we help each other, in which one cruel action will not expose so many people to suffering.

Malka Older is the executive director of Global Voices, an international nonprofit supporting community journalism, digital rights, media literacy, and Indigenous languages. She is a faculty associate at Arizona State University and is the author of “Infomocracy,” a science fiction political thriller about the future of democracy.