One year on from Trump’s USAID freeze, the sector faces a changed global aid landscape.

Last week marked one year since Donald Trump began his second term as President of the United States.  

Within days of taking office, he had issued a series of Executive Orders that included an immediate freeze on all US foreign assistance. This was a decision that would change the face of global aid, with devastating consequences for millions of people around the world.  

One year on, we look back at a period of upheaval and uncertainty for the sector, including many of Bond’s members, and a global aid landscape still coming to terms with its new reality. 

A global leader  

The US has long played a central role in the global fight against poverty, disease and inequality, both as the world’s largest donor to humanitarian assistance worldwide, and through flagship projects like PEPFAR, the Bush-era programme to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic that has saved 26 million lives across 55 countries since its launch in 2003. 

In 2024, before its closure, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US government department responsible for the spending of foreign assistance, disbursed roughly $68 billion in foreign aid to marginalised communities around the world, over 40% of total global aid, bilaterally and through multilateral institutions like the UN and Gavi Alliance. Crucially, nearly half of USAID’s funding was spent through NGOs, including many of Bond’s 350 member organisations and their partners. 

The day the stop-work order came 

The overnight loss of USAID funding, followed by the stop-work orders cascading from head offices to field offices, local implementing partners and over radio stations to communities around the world, sent shockwaves through the sector.  

Programmes lik from peacebuilding and conflict prevention, maternal and child health, to nutrition, education and humanitarian response were brought to a grinding halt. Clinics stood empty, non-food items such as blankets and tents were stuck idle in warehouses, and community outreach teams were unable to reach clients in remote rural areas. Devastatingly, despite every effort by NGOs and their partners, many of those programmes would never resume. 

Staff at Bond member MSI Reproductive Choices’ programmes in Zimbabwe remember the day the stop-work order forced an abrupt end to their programming. Prior to Trump assuming office, they had been awarded a significant five-year grant from USAID, which funded lifesaving reproductive health support for women and girls in Zimbabwe’s rural communities, many of whom had not previously had access to any such provision. When the USAID freeze was implemented, the speed with which the grant was terminated meant staff did not even have the chance to notify the communities they worked with. Instead, they were forced to shutter operations without warning, leaving their clients, including people with disabilities and young people, unable to access basic essential reproductive care. 

Pester Siraha, Country Director of MSI Zimbabwe, said that “many have felt betrayed by the sudden cessation of care, undermining the trust that our teams have built over years. Despite our best efforts and until we can mobilise more funding, people in our rural communities who want contraception are being left behind.” 

This scenario is just one of thousands that played out around the world in the days following the order, and the outlook for the global aid landscape only worsened in the months following the freeze as the administration systematically terminated and rescinded grants, payments and partnerships to NGOs and private firms around the world.  

In total, the Trump administration cancelled 80% of its foreign aid projects worldwide, laying off the majority of USAID staff as the department was dismantled and responsibility for remaining programmes was handed to the State Department. The US also withdrew from key international and multilateral commitments, from climate compacts to the World Health Organisation (WHO): to which it reportedly owes up to $260 million in dues. 

The loss of funding forced NGOs, including Bond’s members, to make impossible decisions, from cutting staff and scaling programmes in high-risk areas to closing regional and local offices and, in the worst cases, even closing completely. Bond members Amref UK were forced to close maternal and newborn health programmes in Malawi., NACOSA, partner of Bond member Frontline AIDS, found that over a third of 200 non-profit community organisations surveyed in Southern Africa in Spring 2025 had less than two months of funding left to continue operations. 

Whilst the sector has shown enormous resilience, including through diversifying funding portfolios and identifying alternative donors to ensure programmes could restart and continue, the sheer scale of USAID funding will be difficult to fully replace, and mass layoffs to NGO’s staff across the sector has caused a worrying decline in capacity and expertise. Even where funds have been replaced, the uncertainty created by the abrupt aid cuts from the US and other countries has made long-term planning and forecasting for NGOs nearly impossible. 

The human cost 

One year on, the human cost of the USAID cuts has already been staggering. ImpactCounter estimates there have been over 750,000 deaths worldwide as a direct result of the cuts since Trumps’s order, including 500,000 children. This amounts to 88 lives lost every hour: each representing a child who did not receive an essential vaccine, a family living in a conflict zone who lost access to food assistance , or a woman unable to receive reproductive healthcare. 

With millions more people now left without access to essential services like healthcare, education and nutrition, and the closure of programmes that fight the spread of disease, end conflicts and tackle climate change, the longer-term consequences of these cuts are incalculable. Indeed, 31 of MSI Reproductive Choices’ country programmes have reported that USAID cuts having significant impact on their national health system and on access to reproductive healthcare. 

A global retreat 

In the past year, cuts to US foreign aid have set a dangerous precedent, with other Western donor states similarly retreating from their development commitments. Cuts from Germany, France, Canada and the UK have been compounded by USAID cuts, causing a drastic reduction in total global aid, a projected 17% fall from 2024 (OECD),leaving multilateral institutions, including OCHA, severely underfunded. And, whilst the US has since negotiated new bilateral health agreements with a number of countries, these have come with heavy stipulations, such as granting the US access to mineral rights, and risk excluding local delivery partners from decision-making and implementation.  

Looking ahead  

For communities already living in poverty, conflict and facing the effects of climate change, the consequences are yet to be fully realised. In the long-term, the Gates Foundation estimate that 200,000 more children under 5 will die in 2025 compared with 2024, all as a result of a year of unprecedented global aid cuts. 

As the international community looks to the future, the challenge of meeting the needs of 239 million people in humanitarian need worldwide (OCHA), remains. However, NGOs, donors and multilateral institutions must now also continue to adapt to the new realities in which they work,and commit to collaborating to build a more resilient, flexible and agile global aid sector amid an increasingly challenging landscape.