In 2025, the United States drastically cut USAID, and the repercussions were felt throughout the world. The cuts affected health clinics, food programs, refugee support, vaccination programs, and emergency services in most low-income countries. OECD preliminary data show that total official development assistance from major donors fell 23.1% in 2025, the biggest one-year drop ever recorded. The United States experienced a reduction of approximately three-quarters of the total decrease due to the USAID only.
That is important since USAID was not a small and symbolic agency. It was also one of the primary sources of funding for the United States’ global health, humanitarian relief, and development. As of 2023, all bilateral U.S. funding on maternal and child health, tuberculosis, and global health security, as well as almost all bilateral U.S. malaria and family planning funding, is run by USAID. With that kind of support severed abruptly, the harm is propagated rapidly.
The Number of People Who Have Been Affected?
No official figure can reflect all the individuals who are being affected by the USAID cuts, as the destruction is distributed across numerous sectors. However, the best testimony is that there are already tens of millions.
According to UNICEF, there are at least 14 million children who are likely to be affected by the loss of nutrition services by 2025 due to aid cuts globally. It also cautioned that over 2.4 million children affected with severe acute malnutrition would lose access to life-saving therapeutic food.
UNAIDS has sounded another alarm. It states that, in case the U.S.-supported HIV services are not substituted, the globe may experience 6.6 million more HIV infections and 4.2 million more AIDS-related deaths in the 2025-2029 period.
WHO has also discovered that the effects have already become widespread. A survey of country offices published in April 2025 found that approximately 70 percent of them had health-service disruptions associated with aid suspensions and decreased funding. According to the WHO, emergency preparedness, disease surveillance, service delivery, medicine supplies, and the health workforce were being impacted by these disruptions.
What countries have been struck the most?
The worst hit countries are those that were already vulnerable and very reliant on foreign aid. The Center of Global Development selected a few low-income nations in which over a fifth of the total foreign aid was provided by USAID. These are South Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia. It was particularly severe in Somalia and South Sudan.
Even prior to the cuts, these countries were already struggling with conflict, displacement, hunger, poor health systems, or debt pressure. CGD also discovered that 26 low- and middle-income nations have received U.S. global health assistance cuts and are also fiscally constrained, which implies that they can do little or nothing to substitute the lost funds themselves.
Refugee settings are particularly prone to the crisis. In Chad, where over 1.3 million Sudanese refugees have been housed, the United Nations reported that significant funding deficits have caused drastic reductions in food, water, and shelter assistance. According to Reuters, aid was being provided to only four out of every ten refugees there, and most families had already cut their food consumption.
The effects of the UK aid cuts on the situation.
This crisis was not made in the United Kingdom, but the aid cuts by this country have exacerbated it. The UK was also scaling back its aid effort at the very time the world was in need of other rich donors to cushion the impact.
The UK government plans indicate that official development assistance will be reduced to 0.3% of gross national income by 2027/28. The anticipated savings of this change are pegged by a parliamentary briefing at £4.8 billion in 2026/27 and 6.5 billion in 2027/28. CGD estimates that programmed UK aid will fall from £10.6 billion in 2024/25 to £7.7 billion in 2026/27 and £7.0 billion in 2027/28.
This is important since the UK has always been a significant contributor to humanitarian initiatives, health services, and multilateral organizations. In case U.S. aid and UK aid are reduced simultaneously, poor nations are deprived of two significant sources of external aid.
Have other countries tried to fill the gap?
Others have attempted, but not with the magnitude required. According to OECD data, only a few donor countries increased aid in 2025, and Germany was the biggest donor among the Development Assistance Committee members for the first time. Multilateral campaigns have also gathered huge amounts. The vaccine alliance known as Gavi received over 9 billion dollars towards its next strategic plan, and the global fund followed on by assuring 12.64 billion dollars towards its 2026-2028 renewal.
These are great initiatives, but they cannot completely substitute what was lost during the failure of the U.S. aid. CGD has cautioned that a large portion of the most affected nations are too poor to bridge the gap, and that other donors cannot shift quickly enough or allocate sufficient funds to reinstate all of the affected services.
What does decreased aid imply for global health?
The greatest threat is that decreased aid not only harms the current patients. It also undermines the mechanisms that guard against crises in the future. With the downsizing of nutrition programs, an increasing number of children fall seriously ill. Interrupted services on HIV and TB further increase the spread of infections. Outbreaks are more probable when there is a slowdown in vaccination. In the event of maternal service failure, the number of preventable deaths increases.
The moral of the story is easy. When foreign aid works, it tends to be invisible, whereas its absence cannot be overlooked. The impact of USAID cuts has already been felt by millions, and the blow is hurting those countries that can least absorb it. Other donors are attempting to reply, but the difference is still huge. To a large part of the world, this has ceased to be a policy discussion. Who receives medicine, food, vaccines, and care is a question.
