USAID.gov: A New Web Page with Information About the United States Agency for International Development and the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid

The deletion of the website and social media accounts alongside significant layoffs and the near-total suspension of work is an effort to dismantle USAID entirely, Jeremy Konyndyk told NPR. Konyndyk led disaster relief under Obama and the COVID and mpox responses under Biden at USAID. He’s currently president of the aid group Refugees International.

He wrote that it needs to die. The Trump Administration put on leave the two security officials at the US Agency for International Development who refused to grant access to confidential documents when workers at the Department of Government Efficiency were denied access on Saturday.

The State Department has a new page on their website with information about the U.S. Agency for International Development and its roles in funding aid projects around the world. The first time that page was captured was on January 27.

There are seven items in this USAID section — a drastic reduction of the reports and information on the original USAID.gov website, which covered the wide range of the agency’s portfolio, from humanitarian assistance and global health to education and conflict prevention.

The first item that appears on the State web page is a press release: “Implementing the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.”

President Trump temporarily halted foreign assistance in that order on the first day of his presidency, writing that foreign aid serves to “destabilize world peace.”

Concerns about the fate of the aid agency, which may be subsumed into the State Department or eliminated altogether, appeared behind the move.

Frustrated by the USAID decision to disestablish the Agency of Intergovernmental Development (USAID) in the U.S. and Afghanistan

“They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they’re just taking everything down,” Konyndyk said. He said they don’t have to “defend what they’re doing” in public announcements because they’re putting it behind the scenes.

Konyndyk pointed out that the consequences of a diminished or erased NASA would be dire, noting that it was important to keep epidemics from reaching U.S. shores.

There was a web shutdown in the wake of the stop work order and lay off of hundreds of employees. More than 400 contractors were laid off in the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance in the first few weeks of the new administration, as well as hundreds more in the Global Health Bureau.

Democrats in Congress are angry at the actions of the other party. The senator posted on Bluesky Friday that the agency’s dissolution would be against the country’s interests.

The question of the legality of any attempt to change the status of USAID is connected to its origins. The Foreign Assistance Act mandated that the agency be created in order to focus on development and not politics. The agency was formally established by Congress as an independent agency in 1998.

Konyndyk said that an executive order can’t be used to undone it. “To actually disestablish the agency and dissolve it into the State Department will take an act of Congress.”

In Pakistan, a notice sent to government officials seen by NPR ordered work to stop on multiple USAID projects. They ranged from the reconstruction of 10 police stations damaged by unprecedented flooding in the summer of 2022 to merit and needs-based scholarships funded through the Pakistan Higher Education Commission.

Asked to comment on the scope of programs being affected in Pakistan and elsewhere, the U.S. State Department referred NPR to the original statement and waiver. The goal of the waivers is toroot out waste, block woke programs and expose activities that run contrary to our national interests. These goals cannot be met, say the memos, “if programs are on ‘auto-pilot.’ “

And the pain was felt nearly immediately in Afghanistan, where humanitarian aid undergirds nearly all services to the country’s some 40 million people. The deputy minister of economy said that around 50 national and international aid organizations had their operations suspended, partly or entirely, across Afghanistan.

The price of items in Afghan bazaars has risen amid the uncertainty. The prices were rising before the inauguration of President Trump. But traders tell NPR that the chaos and uncertainty following his suspension of foreign aid is keeping prices high.

It has made life difficult for Aqlima, who is barely getting by. She asked that NPR not use her last name, worried the Taliban could identify her. A gallon of cooking oil has increased by $5 since she was last able to afford it, she said, as she was working through small tailoring jobs. She said that if they use oil for one meal, they would skip it for two. She purchased a new wood heater a few months ago — now she can’t afford firewood. “We can only afford to breathe,” she sighed.

The senior aid worker spoke on the condition of anonymity and said that it was chaos and had a serious impact on charities. The risk is for women’s education and health care in Afghanistan because of the money they get from the US Agency for International Development.

The health care is interrupted because of vaccination efforts. The project manager in Herat told Nematullah and his colleagues that work was stopped on January 27. The United Nations Population Fund provided the funding for Ghafouri’s project. He did not know that the money he used was obtained by the US government.

“The manager of our department told us to stop your work and wait for further information. Ghafouri told NPR that he is under tremendous pressure. I am the only person in my family with a job. He said that he needed the work.

The American University of Afghanistan: Suspended Online Classes for Girls in Defiance of the Taliban and a Model for the Restoration of Foreign Aid

One project that has an uncertain future provides classes for Afghan girls in defiance of the Taliban. The hardline group does not allow girls to study beyond grade six, and so the project runs classes online, through the radio and even has a network of clandestine schools that educate over 5,000 girls across Afghanistan and employ over 100 teachers.

The project is “the brink of shutting down,” said one aid worker familiar with the situation. She requested anonymity because her aid group does not want to be identified since they are in a position to negotiate a softer stance against the Trump administration.

The American University of Afghanistan has also suspended classes, according to an email sent to a student who took a screenshot of the message and shared it with NPR. “If foreign aid is restored, then the Asian American Foundation will start teaching again,” the message said. AUAF is the acronym for the American University of Afghanistan. The school supports educating young women in defiance of the Afghanistan rulers and has continued teaching under the Taliban rule. The organization didn’t respond immediately to the request for comment.