Experts warn that aid cuts by developed countries risk intensifying global instability and conflict.
It is not a good time for international aid and development. Germany’s most recent budget set out plans to dramatically slash aid and development spending, with the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development suffering a budget cut of over $1 billion and humanitarian aid being halved. France slashed a similar amount from its aid budget in its third foreign aid cut in two years. Finland also decreased its official development assistance, following $1 billion cuts by The Netherlands and $282 million cut in Switzerland’s foreign aid. More broadly, the European Union’s member states agreed to a $2.1 billion cut in the bloc’s development budget.
This has only been compounded by the new Trump administration’s freeze on almost all foreign aid. The president has also pushed to dissolve the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with efforts underway to fold the independent humanitarian agency into the State Department. On February 4, the administration prepared for the withdrawal of all overseas USAID personnel, and that very evening agency staff received an email announcing that almost the entirety of them would be put on administrative leave. Later reporting indicated that only 611 USAID staff out of a total of over 13,000 would remain in their positions, although this plan was blocked by the courts on February 7.
Foreign policy and development experts have warned that the U.S.’ retreat from foreign aid in particular will have dramatic negative effects on peoples’ lives and peace across the world. Former President of Colombia Manuel Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful peace negotiations to put an end to decades of war with the FARC militia, told The Guardian, “I have seen the massive benefit these programmes funded by USAid have generated for people across the country. To cut it, suddenly, is going to have a terrible humanitarian effect.”
Michael Schiffer, who served as assistant administrator of the USAID Bureau for Asia under the Biden administration, told NBC News that the policy changes in Washington could erode U.S. national security and risk instability around the world, potentially influencing extremism and deepening migration crises.
The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a nonpartisan network of organizations working around the world to end violent conflict, has spent the administration’s first few weeks organizing a response to the aid freeze, as several of its member organizations had their US government funding put on hold or had funding requests declined. In an email sent to members on January 24, the organization said that it recognized that “this is a stressful moment for implementing members.”
On January 29, AfP and other organizations compiled draft talking points on the strategic value of peacebuilding programs. The draft, which Peace News has access to, lists ways in which the freeze has interrupted peacebuilding programming that promoted stability and prosperity around the world, and advanced U.S. national security, political, and economic interests amidst “strategic geopolitical power competition.”
The talking points added that “while reform is the prerogative of any incoming Administration,” the “chaotic nature of the freeze and potential efforts to dissolve USAID is creating far more harm than good.”
The AfP said that projects to document war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Sudan had stopped, undermining justice and accountability, and that efforts to consult with and train women leaders to help end the country’s civil war had been suspended. Furthermore, the organization also said that the freeze paused a program aimed at helping Venezuelan migrants stay in neighboring South American countries by providing them with work training and housing.
The talking points also said that beyond the humanitarian and peacebuilding consequences of the administration’s policies, there was a risk that US leadership could be undermined, leaving a power vacuum for powers like China and Iran, who “actively try to undermine the U.S.”
On February 5, the AfP released a statement calling the administration’s foreign assistance freeze “a wrecking ball approach that takes away our ability to prevent war and reduce violence.” The statement warned of the potential spread of deadly illnesses, especially in war zones, and of growing violent extremism in the Sahel as conflict prevention assistance is cut down.
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown remarked on how the dismantlement of USAID will contribute to the global aid crisis, saying, “The tragedy for the planet is that US aid cuts come on top of diminishing aid budgets among the world’s richest economies, from Germany to the UK. International aid agencies are now so underfunded that in 2024, for the second consecutive year, the UN covered less than half of its humanitarian funding goal of nearly $50bn – at a time when increasing conflicts and natural disasters necessitate more relief donor grants than ever.”
Peace News’ coverage has confirmed the important role that development and aid play in peacebuilding. In Yemen, humanitarian NGOs have taken on the responsibility of bridging the divide between the rival parties in the country’s civil war. NGOs have acted as intermediaries between the warring factions, and even helped negotiate a deal to provide water services in a city where control was split between rival authorities. This article’s author, Dr. Moosa Elaya, an Associate Professor in International Development and Conflict Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, noted that NGOs’ ability to undertake such bridging roles depended on “flexible and sustained funding from international donors.”
In a United States Institute of Peace event covered by Peace News, Gloria Steela, a former Acting Administrator for USAID, highlighted the ties between development issues, like food security and the climate crisis, and conflict. “We know today that 40 percent of global land has been degraded, making arable land more scarce and bringing about land conflicts, and this accounts for the long-term civil war in Nigeria, for example, and in many other places,” said Steele.
Dr. Andrea Warnecke, an Assistant Professor at the Institute for History and International Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, warned that humanitarian and development organizations may not always be the ideal peacebuilders. Their core goals of impartiality and neutrality can clash with the overtly political elements of peacebuilding, and the need to maintain working relations with host governments may hinder their capacity to engage in truly transformative peacebuilding interventions.
Still, there is a consensus that foreign development aid has an important role to play within broader peacebuilding efforts, and that dramatic cuts in aid across the world during a time of widespread conflict risk undermining global peace. As Brown added in his Guardian op-ed, “We all gain if USAid can mitigate the spread of infectious diseases, prevent malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, halt the upsurge of [the Islamic State] in Syria and support a fair, humanitarian reconstruction of Gaza and Ukraine.”
Keywords: aid, USAid, Trump, USA, US, Germany, peace, aid, foreign aid, development, international development, refugees, conflict
Pablo Molina Asensi
Pablo Molina Asensi is a Freelancer and Grants Manager for Peace News Network. He earned his M.A. in Global Communication from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in 2024, concentrating in Conflict and Conflict Resolution. He also graduated from The American University's School of International Service in 2022, with concentrations in Peace, Global Security, and Conflict Resolution in addition to Global Inequality and Development. Pablo is particularly interested in issues of human rights and refugee policy. He has carried out research into the situation of DRC refugees in Uganda and has written extensively about Western Sahara.
