Dismantling of USAID and foreign funding freeze jeopardises rule of law and human rights globally

Rebecca Root, IBA Southeast Asia Correspondent

President Donald Trump’s administration is dismantling the US foreign aid agency, USAID, and has ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign development assistance funding. These actions are part of President Trump and his adviser Elon Musk’s efforts to curtail America’s overseas spending and are set to have ramifications for human rights and the rule of law globally.

‘The impact could be profound in some places. USAID funds numerous programmes aimed at strengthening democratic institutions, promoting human rights, and supporting civil society organisations’, says Juan Manuel Marchán, Co-Chair of the IBA Poverty and Social Development Committee. A loss of funding could weaken these efforts, he says.
 
Through USAID – which was founded in 1961 – the US has supported over 100 countries in improving areas such as health, education and access to clean water. During times of disaster or crisis, such as the war in Ukraine or the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the US has also channelled its aid and relief programmes through the agency. USAID runs its own programmes but also funds non-governmental organisations (NGOs) globally.

Historically, some of that support has focused on democracy, human rights and governance as well as gender equality. For example, in Thailand, the USAID-funded Andaman Friendship Association is the only organisation on the island of Phuket offering Burmese migrants legal support while in Romania, Comunitatea Mea focuses on improving democracy and governance. Without the backing of USAID, many organisations such as these will be forced to halt their important work or fold entirely if they can’t find alternative sources of funding.

Already hospitals on the Thai border treating those injured by the civil war in Myanmar have had to close, while at least 37 clinics have also shut in Malawi, says Anu Kumar, President and Chief Executive Officer of reproductive justice NGO Ipas. This leaves people without vital access to healthcare – a human right in itself. 

NGOs such as the Mercy Corps, the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee have meanwhile had to lay off staff, unable to wait out the US State Department’s 90-day review of foreign development assistance funding. 

The Trump administration has sought to significantly reduce staffing numbers at USAID itself. As of late February, it had placed some 4,200 staff on leave and fired more than 1,600. These cuts suggest that while a number of programmes may resume – as has been the case with some HIV/AIDs work – the majority will not.

A number of lawsuits have been brought against the Trump administration’s actions on aid, including by NGOs and unions. In early March, the Supreme Court denied a request from the Trump administration to withhold payments to foreign aid organisations for work already completed.

The disruptions to aid mean there will be reduced support for human rights defenders and civil society generally, says Ravi Madasamy, LGBTQI+ Liaison Officer on the IBA Human Rights Law Committee. ‘This will weaken the capacity of local organisations to monitor the reporting of human rights abuses and leave activists and marginalised groups more exposed to repression’, he says.

Bangladesh’s government, for example, is currently undergoing a restructure, with key functions such as the anti-corruption commission and electoral and constitutional processes being reformed. USAID was meant to support the country in doing this, says AKM Jashim Uddin, Director of the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh, but now ‘these activities definitely will be hampered’. He remains hopeful however that the US State Department sees the value in continuing the work of building a democracy.

The dismantling of USAID will also have an impact on gender equality and women’s rights, says Madasamy, who’s the Founder and Director of M Ravi Law. A significant portion of USAID’s work focused on empowering women and girls in places such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Ukraine.

‘Right now, we are seeing healthcare clinics closing due to staff shortages [and] the lack of commodities and supplies’, says Kumar. She adds that there has been a disruption to contraception use as well as to supplies used to treat postpartum haemorrhages, ‘which could result in an increase in unintended pregnancies and maternal mortality’.

President Trump also reinstated the global gag rule upon his inauguration in January. This rule limits the ability of NGOs receiving USAID funding for health programming from providing family planning support overseas. 

While the long-term consequences of the withdrawal of US funding are yet to be fully understood, many still have hope. For Tanvi Nagpal, a strategy and learning adviser for the Water Environment Federation whose consultancy work on urban water and sanitation ceased when the USAID announcement was made, that hope lies with other countries, multilateral development banks and philanthropic donors. They, she believes, may step up to fill the funding void left by USAID so that programmes can continue and rule of law and human rights don’t regress on a global scale.

The issue for Madasamy, however, is that China may be among the donors filling the place of the US – and it won’t necessarily do so with the same requirement for aid recipients to adhere to human rights. He fears that as human rights become less of a focus, marginalised communities, such as LGBTQI+ persons and ethnic minorities, may in particular become more vulnerable to discrimination and violence.

Marchán, who’s also a partner at Pérez Bustamante & Ponce in Ecuador, says that to minimise the impact, remaining donors should invest in building the capacity of local organisations and governments to manage and sustain development programmes independently. Meanwhile, they should engage in advocacy efforts to highlight the importance of development aid and encourage policymakers to reconsider funding cuts, he adds. ‘By taking these steps, it may be possible to mitigate some of the negative impacts of USAID cuts and continue to support global development efforts’, says Marchán.
 

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Climate crisis: US exit from Paris Agreement deals blow to international cooperation

Chloé Farand

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has gone further and faster in gutting US climate action than in his last term.

On his first day in office, the president signed an executive order again announcing the exit of the US from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. He has repeatedly suggested that the Agreement hurts America’s economic interests. By exiting, the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries not committed to the global deal, which was adopted in 2015 to keep the global average temperature well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and ideally no higher than 1.5C. 

The move has dealt a fresh blow to international climate cooperation in the middle of a critical decade, when faster greenhouse gas emissions cuts are needed to avoid the worst of the climate crisis. ‘With the largest historical emitter not at the table, how could that not impact what the world is able to achieve on the climate front in decreasing global emissions?’ says Courtney Federico, Associate Director for International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress. 

The withdrawal by the US may reduce the pressure on other large emitters to ratchet up their climate ambitions. Most countries missed a February deadline to submit a new set of climate targets to the UN – a trend that reflects a ‘downward pressure on climate ambition’ since President Trump’s election, Federico says.  
The US is the only country to have left the Paris Agreement, but it could embolden others to follow suit. Argentina and Indonesia are understood to be mooting an exit too.  

‘Does anybody think that the US was ever a fully reliable partner in the climate space? I think the answer is probably no,’ says Michael Showalter, Membership Officer of the IBA Environment, Health and Safety Law Committee. ‘The fossil fuel industry drives a lot of our politics […] and that surely is the case right now.’

It’s unclear, however, whether the White House’s efforts to spur more oil and gas extraction – already at a record high – will translate into more fossil fuels being drilled out of the ground, adds Showalter, who’s a partner at ArentFox Schiff in Chicago. 

It’s also debatable as to whether this second retreat by the US will have deeper implications for climate action than it did during President Trump’s first term. ‘What you have had since that time is four years of intense climate action in the US and around the world,’ says Pete Ogden, Vice President for Climate and Environment at the United Nations Foundation. Ogden believes ‘there is a greater momentum for climate action at this moment than ever before.’

The first Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement did appear to have a galvanising effect on some other jurisdictions as they attempted to fill the void – for example, the EU’s climate action became more ambitious. This time around, countries may also feel pressure to ratchet up their ambition given the absence of US cooperation.

Meanwhile, even as the US changes direction on climate, there have been innovative developments at a state level, for example in the form of the Climate Superfund Act in New York. 

What’s clear is that the US will exit the Paris Agreement significantly faster this time. The Agreement requires any country wishing to leave to wait three years after its entry into force – ie, November 2016 – before notifying their withdrawal. The withdrawal takes effect one year after notification to the UN.

During President Trump’s first term, these legal rules meant the US formally left the treaty a day after the 2020 election, which saw Joe Biden elected to the White House with a promise to rejoin the accord on his first day in office. The US was out of the Paris Agreement for less than three months, therefore. This time, the process to leave will only take a year. The US will formally exit the Agreement on 27 January 2026. From then on, the US will no longer have to submit carbon-cutting plans to the UN. However, an American delegation will still be able to attend UN climate talks as a party to its Framework Convention on Climate Change, the bedrock of global climate cooperation. 

Washington is also abandoning the climate targets announced by Biden a month before he left office, and references to the crisis have been removed from a number of US government websites. Further, the Trump administration has revoked and rescinded the country’s federal climate finance programme. The president has previously called his country’s financial pledges on the climate ‘unfair’.

The decision to turn off the climate funding tap represents one of the most tangible impacts for the rest of the world. The White House has formally cancelled $4bn in pledges made under the Obama and Biden administrations to the Green Climate Fund. The African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change said this would ‘leave vulnerable nations to bear an unjust burden’. 

The US rescinding its financial commitments will reduce further the already insufficient funds intended for developing countries to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. US contributions accounted for 12 per cent of climate finance for developed countries in 2022. 

Meanwhile, that the White House is turning its back on clean energy – for example, removing the electric vehicle mandate – at a time when the rest of the world is racing to secure the critical minerals and technologies expected to dominate future power systems could see the US lose out to rivals such as China. ‘If the Trump administration truly wants America to lead the global economy, become energy independent, and create good-paying American jobs, affordable energy, and clean air – then they must stay focused on growing our clean energy industry,’ says Gina McCarthy, a former White House national climate advisor.

And if the federal government isn’t taking the lead, others will fill the gap. McCarthy is a co-chair of America Is All In, a coalition of cities, states, businesses and local institutions that have vowed to accelerate climate action and strive to achieve existing carbon-cutting commitments. 

Although weakened, analysts agree that global climate action will continue. ‘The US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is unfortunate, but multilateral climate action has proven resilient and is stronger than any single country’s politics and policies,’ says Laurence Tubiana, Chief Executive Officer of the European Climate Foundation and one of the architects of the Paris Agreement. 

Details of the IBA’s engagement with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change can be found here.

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