USAID delivery of 47,500 metric tons of sorghum to Port Sudan on May 26, 2015.
(CNN) - It's
not just Americans who worry about their jobs, health care or how they will feed their families depending on who gets the Oval Office.
Even in the 'America First' era, the country is the world's largest donor of foreign aid and the largest individual contributor to the World Food Program, giving people around the world reason to care every day. time a new administration arrives in Washington.
Tens of billions of dollars are at stake for food, water, education, health, security and other development needs of countries.
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"Each administration brings its own new priorities," says Mark Green, former director of USAID, America's main foreign aid channel, who served through the Trump administration until this spring.
The agency's mission to save lives, reduce poverty and promote democracy on behalf of the American people may not change, but it must also align with the executive branch.
The agency declined to comment for this story.
'Skeptic of aid'
Although the current White House has launched programs for women and religious minorities, US President Donald Trump is what Green calls an "aid skeptic."
He has repeatedly tried to cut USAID's budget by more than 20%.
And it has used the aid cuts as a foreign policy club, temporarily halting assistance to the impoverished "Northern Triangle" of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador because of migration;
abolishing assistance for United Nations food, education and employment programs in Gaza and the West Bank through the peace talks;
and strictly limiting who could receive health funding for abortion.
Green, who now serves as executive director of the McCain Institute, says it is "not uncommon" for the White House or Congress to impose restrictions on attendance.
“Sometimes it is for political reasons, sometimes it is for strategic reasons.
It really varies, but (USAID) doesn't have complete flexibility, I'll put it that way, ”he explains.
USAID's budget battle
The Trump administration made annual attempts to cut USAID's budget, although these were largely rejected by Congress.
His 2019 budget proposal for the aid agency was so low that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham dismissed it as "ridiculous" at an April 2018 meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign State Operations and Related Programs.
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"Listen to this one," Graham said as he listed the proposed cuts.
«Africa: 52.6%.
Have things gotten better in Africa and I just missed it?
(…) The people who made these cuts clearly don't know what they are talking about.
They haven't spent a minute analyzing Africa.
They are simply inventing numbers to balance a budget, "he said.
“While the administration views the role of the State Department and USAID in diplomacy and development as critical to national security, this needs to be balanced against restricting general non-defense discretionary spending, including in the Department of Defense. State and USAID, "a State Department spokesman told CNN.
Promote 'self-reliance'
Green, whose job it was to defend the budget request at that hearing, says he did not feel "challenged" by the president's attempts to remove millions of dollars in funding.
He claims that he saw it as a healthy challenge.
“President Trump, and not just President Trump, but the team around President Trump, I think they are skeptical of aid.
It is not a secret.
But what that always meant to me and to the USAID team was that we took it as a challenge.
And because of that, we worked hard to show how we were squeezing the value out of each show.
And that these programs can be an essential tool in diplomatic policy and economic policy, "he said.
Before resigning, he led an agency reorientation that appears designed in part to appeal to skeptics.
I seek to promote a 'journey of self-reliance' for recipient countries with the ultimate goal of 'working towards a time when foreign assistance is no longer needed'.
Even so, he adds later: “Would I have liked more money?
Absolutely.
I'd always be honest and say, 'look, that's how it works.'
You give me $ 10 and I can give this.
If you give me less, I do less ».
cuts
Due to the massive scale of US foreign aid, even small changes in spending can help or hurt hundreds of thousands of people.
"In the future, we are only going to provide foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends," Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in 2018.
Lina Abu-Zariffa has had a difficult time feeding her three children since that year.
"There is nothing in the house," the 34-year-old woman from Gaza told CNN.
"The other day, my daughters wanted a cup of yogurt and an egg and I couldn't even provide that," he added.
She used to receive US-funded vouchers, worth about $ 130 per month.
The vouchers helped her buy essentials like flour, cooking oil, rice, and sugar.
Now he relies on donations from his sister and neighbors who sympathize with the family.
"I don't have the money to provide anything," he said.
In the midst of political instability, nearly half of Gaza's population is unemployed and many are mired in debt.
"There is no work in Gaza, and no institution or organization to fill the void," he says.
Khaled Zou'reb, 55, was excluded from the same program.
And he says trying to put food on the table for his family of 10 has become "a living hell" without the coupons.
"When I look at the children of other families, I say to myself: 'I wish my children were like that.'
'A void' in Gaza's economy
Both are among the roughly 130,000 people in Gaza who stopped receiving food stamps when US funding for World Food Program work in the West Bank and Gaza ran out in 2018. This was part of a series of cuts widely viewed as an attempt to pressure Palestinian officials into dialogue.
When asked if those cuts, made during his tenure, had any humanitarian or development goals, Green pointed to the White House.
"You know, USAID operates under whatever presidential guidance or rules or restrictions are established," he said.
A State Department spokesman said that "the administration continues to assess where US aid could best advance US policies and priorities and provide maximum value to the US taxpayer, taking into account relevant legislation."
The cuts don't just affect aid recipients.
They have also "created a vacuum" in Gaza's already fragile economy by forcing aid organizations to fire workers, says Lana Abu-Hijleh, local director of Global Communities.
This is the organization that distributed the food vouchers for the World Food Program.
More than 2,000 local workers and contractors have lost their jobs due to funding cuts, he estimates.
His own staff at Global Communities was cut from more than 100 employees to just 12, a phenomenon that has followed funding cuts around the world.
The Politics of Mexico City
In western Nepal, Renu Roka Ranamagar, 29, also lost his job due to another turnaround from the Trump era.
In 2017, the United States imposed a broad ban on foreign organizations that received US health funds if they performed or promoted abortion, even where it is legal.
Ranamagar, a family planning counselor, was one of 230 people who lost their job at the Family Planning Association of Nepal (FPAN).
This is a non-profit organization that offers family planning and medical abortion services in rural areas.
A quarter of the organization's budget disappeared because of this policy, says Acting CEO Subhash Chandra Shrestha.
“We organized mobile camps all over the country.
We can no longer do the same in that capacity.
The USAID funding cut greatly affected our programs and goals, ”Shrestha said.
Ranamagar now works at a local private hospital, but he still receives calls from women he used to counsel and who want to know their options.
"I wish the project had continued" to help them, he said.
All Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan have banned foreign organizations from performing or promoting abortion if they receive family planning funding from the United States.
This restriction is known as the Mexico City Policy.
Democratic presidents have reversed it.
Expanded restrictions
But Trump went further.
And it expanded the restriction to apply to foreign organizations that receive any US health funding, including money for nutrition, malaria, tuberculosis, tropical diseases and children's health programs.
The rule could affect an estimated $ 12 billion in U.S. assistance, according to a March 2020 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress.
“When a foreign NGO refuses to accept the (Protection of Life in Global Health Care) Policy, USAID transfers the activities that the NGO would have carried out with US funding to other partners, while minimizing any disruption of care "A USAID spokesperson told CNN.
An August State Department review found that the policy disrupted some efforts to treat tuberculosis and HIV / AIDS and to provide nutritional assistance, among other programs.
Several studies and CNN's own reports have also shown that the policy actually produces more abortions: When health organizations that reject the restrictions lose funds, more women have a hard time accessing basic contraception in the first place.
Fill the gap
Other nations have tried to fill in the gaps where US funding has disappeared, with limited success.
The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden have raised millions to support unrestricted family planning.
This, however, is far less than the billions of global health funds that are now affected by America's expanded rule.
The World Food Program is also raising funds from other sources, including loans from its own corporate budget, to feed hungry people in the West Bank and Gaza now that the coronavirus exacerbates poverty, says Yasmine Abuelassal, an association official for the program in Palestine.
"Some new donors got involved, like Germany and the UK, but their funding has been significantly smaller than the funding gap that was created after the withdrawal of US financial support," he adds.
Nicola Jones, a researcher at the London-based Overseas Development Institute, says that while she hopes the United States will resume funding, the devastating impacts of Trump's cuts have already demonstrated the danger of being so dependent on one country.
The world has to make sure that aid is not subject to "political whims," he says.
The worst moment
As the pandemic increases poverty and health threats around the world, help is needed more than ever.
But the timing couldn't be worse, as the virus also affects the economies of donor countries.
In July, the United Kingdom announced that it would cut aid spending by almost 3 billion pounds (about $ 3.8 billion).
But "what's even more expensive is inaction," warns Green, the former USAID administrator.
Rich countries will end up paying the price in security for leaving the world's most vulnerable people unsupported, desperate and vulnerable to exploitation, he says.
He points to PEPFAR, an initiative launched by former President George W. Bush that has so far spent more than $ 85 billion during the Republican and Democratic presidencies to combat HIV / AIDS.
"That wasn't just the moral right thing to do," Green says.
“This is a strategic victory in the sense of being a beacon of hope and showing people around the world that America's leadership is important.
It was cheap, in that sense, "he added.
Bethlehem Feleke in Nairobi and Angela Dewan in London contributed to this report.
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