New global alliances forming during U.S. funding freeze

The United States’ pause on foreign aid earlier this year halted the work of the Cambodian Mine Action Center, which removed dangerous landmines left over from the country’s earlier armed conflicts. But in February, Cambodia confirmed that it could keep the program going for a year after it received a $4.4 million grant from China.

Sunday marked the official end of the Trump administration’s 90-day foreign aid freeze first announced in January, and officials said that the administration had completed a review by the end of March. But days before Sunday’s deadline, the administration extended the review for another 30 days, according to an internal State Department email.

The United States is the world’s single-largest provider of foreign aid and development assistance, disbursing $80 billion in foreign support in 2023. Aid agencies and analysts have said it is unlikely that any other particular country can take over for the United States. The uncertainty has left countries and aid groups who relied on the United States looking to other countries and sources to fill the funding gap.

The temporary freeze followed longstanding criticisms over inefficiencies at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its involvement in international politics. By late March, the administration had terminated more than 80% of USAID programs.

Aid groups are scrambling to make up the funding gap left by the U.S. aid pause. The World Food Program warned this week that the organization may have to cut food and nutrition aid to some 3.6 million people in weeks without urgent funding. In a March report, the United Nations’ children’s agency warned that funding cuts could cause more than 2.4 million children across 17 countries to suffer from severe acute malnutrition. The agency noted that some of its malnutrition treatment centers have already stopped operating.

As the foreign aid pause came into effect, Christian aid agency World Relief’s team in Sudan received conflicting information over their U.S.-funded agricultural services to displaced persons and host communities.

Gemta Birhanu, regional director of World Relief’s programs in Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad, said several letters approving and then cutting off their operations came in before a final notice in March confirmed they could resume operations. “It interrupted us several times,” he said.

Another operation serving nearly 1 million people in South Sudan wrapped up and was not renewed, according to Birhanu.

“We had submitted several projects for Sudan and South Sudan, which were about to be approved,” Birhanu said. “Those projects, which were at final negotiations, were automatically canceled.”

Birhanu said they had to let go of more than 400 staff members in South Sudan. More than 25 health centers have also shuttered. He added that the mission is now checking into other funding sources, such as private donors and other partnerships with European-based organizations, as “the gap still remains huge.”

In the United States’ absence, more organizations and countries are now looking to the Saudi-based King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center. In February, the group partnered with the United Nations Development Program to assist Yemeni communities dealing with the effects of armed conflict. A month later, it announced a more than $5 million fund to support Ukrainian refugees combating gender-based violence. Last year, the group said it gave $47 million to 98 humanitarian projects in Nigeria.

In testimony this month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, confirmed that China is boosting its presence in the aftermath of suspended U.S. aid.

One week after the United States canceled funding for two projects in Cambodia that funded child literacy and nutrition efforts, China launched similar programs. U.S. officials have said the country made a similar move after USAID ended a childhood development project in Rwanda last month.

“There’s a number of programs that we see that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to replicate,” Langley said at the hearing. “Those capabilities are needed for the U.S. to maintain a strategic advantage over the Chinese Communist Party.”

Christian-Geraud Neema, the Africa editor of the nonprofit multimedia organization China-Global South Project, said there’s no clear sense that China has started to completely shift its development strategy to immediately fill the U.S. void. China was also already active in countries like Rwanda, helping to expand childcare services, Neema added.

“For China, it’s aid and development projects at the same time,” he explained. “That’s why what China calls ‘development aid’ also comes with forms of, for example, financing railways, projects where they give a loan to finance a railway.”

Countries like Nigeria and Liberia have already started to look inward to fill the financial dents. But Neema said many other countries in Africa are still trying to make sense of the effects of the aid cuts and determine the way forward.

“Right now … they haven’t grasped [the situation] yet to the extent where they know where the problem is, where they need intervention, to what extent they need intervention, and who can provide,” he explained. “There’s still that discussion in many African countries.”