Latest news with #foreignassistance
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
What US$60 million aid package means for Philippines-US ties: ‘it speaks volumes'
The United States has ended its months-long freeze on foreign assistance with a 3 billion-peso (US$60 million) pledge to the Philippines – a modest sum that analysts say carries outsized strategic significance for Washington's Indo-Pacific priorities under President Donald Trump. Advertisement Analysts say the aid package, while limited in monetary terms, underscores the Philippines' growing importance to US economic and security strategy – offering a window into how Washington may reward aligned partners even as it pursues a protectionist trade agenda. Announced just days after Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr wrapped up a three-day visit to Washington last week, the aid package will support energy, maritime and economic growth initiatives in the country, including private sector development along the Luzon Economic Corridor. The funding marks the first foreign aid announcement by the Trump administration since it declared in January that all foreign assistance would be reviewed and potentially realigned to better serve US interests. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr in Washington on July 21. Photo: Reuters US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed plans to earmark a portion of the fund – 825 million pesos – to develop the private sector in the Luzon Economic Corridor that would help bolster investments in transport, logistics, energy and semiconductors, and generate new jobs in the country.
Al Arabiya
07-07-2025
- Business
- Al Arabiya
World bank expects Syria's GDP to grow 1 percent in 2025
The World Bank said on Monday that Syria's gross domestic product is expected to grow modestly by 1 percent in 2025, following a contraction of 1.5 percent in 2024. 'The easing of sanctions provides some upside potential; however, progress remains limited as frozen assets and restricted access to international banking continue to hinder energy supply, foreign assistance, humanitarian support, and trade and investment,' the World Bank said in a statement.
Associated Press
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
The US says 'little to show‘ for six-decade aid agency. Supporters point to millions of lives saved
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development raced against the moment their computer access would be shut off, before the Trump administration's dismantling of the six-decade-old foreign assistance agency took near-final effect Tuesday. With only a tiny fraction of the 13,000 staffers and institutional contractors who ran U.S. aid and development slated to keep their jobs by Tuesday's latest round of cuts, some described laboring to push out what promised funding they could before Tuesday, to the small slice of programs worldwide that have survived the administration's purge of foreign assistance. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's government-cutting Department of Government Efficiency dismantled USAID within weeks of Trump's taking office, accusing the agency, with little evidence, of waste and fraud and supporting a liberal agenda. 'That ends today,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media posting Tuesday. American taxpayers would no longer 'pay taxes to fund failed governments in faraway lands,' Rubio vowed. Supporters say USAID has fundamentally improved health systems and humanitarian networks around the world, promoted democracy and boosted countries and people out of poverty in a way that has saved lives, stemmed refugee crises and wars, and built markets and trading partners for the United States. In a Lancet medical study published Monday, USAID's last day as an independent agency, researchers credited USAID programs with preventing 91 million deaths in the first two decades of this century alone. Staffers sign off with tributes, solidarity — and some anger Globally, some staffers planned online meetups for their last hours, where they would simultaneously cut up their government IDs as they said the Trump administration had demanded. In a show of support and gratitude, rock star Bono, Republican former President George W. Bush and Democratic former President Barack Obama filmed video tributes to staffers. 'They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,' Bono said. In the days before staffers lost their log-in access, State Department official Kenneth Jackson sent an email, obtained by The Associated Press, thanking them for their 'professionalism' in a 'successful transition' amid 'challenges.' Staffers shared emails some colleagues sent back, calling their firings illegal and the elimination of U.S. foreign assistance a threat to national security. They wrote that the lives they had saved would be their legacy. The change was hitting a hospital in central Liberia where USAID over decades had built up maternal and child care and funded out-of-reach HIV medication, until the Trump administration slashed funding without warning earlier this year. The hospital had no advanced notice that 'after five months or a year or so, you say we'll no longer be able to be funding the health care services in Liberia,' said Dr. Minnie Sankawulo Ricks, a pediatrician, of the cuts to USAID programs. 'We just woke up one day and boom.' 'No one ever saw it coming.' Rubio says USAID created a bureaucracy with 'little to show' Secretary of State Marco Rubio had ordered USAID and its remaining programs absorbed into the State Department by Tuesday. 'Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,' Rubio said in a Substack post Tuesday. The Trump administration's new slimmed-down aid system would cut bureaucracy to respond more quickly to crises, empower diplomats out in the field at a reduced number of regional bureaus, and emphasize U.S. trade, not aid, Rubio wrote. The Trump administration has asked Congress for $17 billion for foreign assistance for next year, less than half the previous amount. Asked for comment about the last days of USAID as an independent agency, the State Department said it would be introducing this week its foreign assistance successor, America First. 'The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests,' the department said. Objections by USAID and State Department staffers to the slashing of foreign assistance and other changes resulted in an unprecedented 700 dissent cables, a traditional internal way of registering concerns to secretaries of state, said Andrew Natsios, a former USAID administrator who still has ties to both agencies. The State Department did not immediately respond when asked if the figure was correct or to provide details on its new foreign aid plans. In South Africa, dread is building as the world's largest HIV program begins resorting to cutting doses, dragging out waiting time for appointments and missing testing targets. The USAID cuts have stripped more than $400 million a year from South Africa's program through the President's Emergency Relief Plan for AIDS Relief, an initiative started by the George W. Bush administration credited with saving more than 25 million lives in Africa and beyond. A complex system — that works President John F. Kennedy and Congress started USAID in the early 1960s. It was part of an emphasis on foreign aid as a tool of diplomacy and a belief that helping other countries become more stable and prosperous benefited the United States in kind. Kennedy had complained that State Department diplomats weren't nimble enough at that. He wanted operations experts. A study published in the Lancet medical journal on Monday gave an idea of its impact more recently: USAID helped prevent 91 million deaths worldwide between 2001 and 2021, researchers based in Spain, the U.S. and elsewhere estimated. That was led by more than halving of the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS, malaria and tropical diseases. The study projected that USAID's dismantling and deep funding cuts would lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children. Natsios, the USAID administrator under Bush, ticks off a list of fundamental, systematic, and measurable improvements made by USAID around the world: USAID support played a vital role for agriculture's Green Revolution, credited with saving 1 billion lives around the world, including by developing and providing improved crops. USAID's building of a famine early warning system and other developments have sharply reduced the number and severity of famines. USAID rapid response teams have scrambled to shut down epidemics before they spread, including in a 2014 Ebola outbreak that killed thousands in Africa. USAID work with other global partners has strengthened health systems around the world, contributing to reducing deaths among children under 5 by 69% since 1990. Funding for many of those programs has been cut off or reduced under Trump. USAID and U.S. foreign assistance had been 'a massive and very complex system, that works. That works,' Natsios said. 'And now that system has been destroyed.' ___ Pronczuk reported from Dakar. Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Rubio hails end of USAID as study says its elimination could contribute to 14 million deaths in next 5 years
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the end of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Tuesday as a new analysis found that its demolition could contribute to 14 million deaths in the next five years. 'This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests,' Rubio said in a post on Substack Tuesday. 'As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests — will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,' he said. The rapid destruction of USAID, led by the Elon-Musk backed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has seen thousands of foreign assistance programs slashed, including many focused on lifesaving work. A study published Monday in The Lancet estimates that the USAID funding cuts could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030. Nearly a third of those deaths – more than 4.5 million – are estimated to be among children younger than 5. Authors of the study said that the effects of the funding cuts 'would be similar in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict.' 'Unlike those events, however, this crisis would stem from a conscious and avoidable policy choice—one whose burden would fall disproportionately on children and younger populations, and whose consequences could reverberate for decades,' they wrote. USAID funding was most likely to reduce mortality related to HIV/AIDS, followed by malaria, according to the Lancet study. Strong associations were also found with tropical diseases, diarrhoeal disease, nutritional deficiencies, lower respiratory infections, maternal mortality and tuberculosis. A senior State Department official downplayed the Lancet's findings, saying Tuesday, 'a lot of these sort of studies are based on incorrect assumptions about what Secretary Rubio intends to and has done before.' 'I think he's been very clear that a lot of the life-saving work that we do will continue and will be made more efficient,' the official said. However, aid groups have said that USAID's swift dismantlement, coupled with a sudden and sweeping freeze on foreign assistance in January, has already had devastating consequences. The official was largely dismissive of criticism of the administration's moves. 'You can go back and relitigate all these little decisions. That's not our focus. That's not the secretary's focus. We are excited about what sort of the America first foreign assistance agenda is going to look like and how much impact we can have moving forward,' they said. The official said the administration is looking at new metrics to gauge the success of US assistance work. 'We want to see sort of more bilateral engagement. We want to see more investment from our partners, co-investment. We want to see trade deals, compacts, agreements, to work together on stuff,' they said. 'Those are a big indicator of success for us.' 'What we want to do with this is build bridges bilaterally consistent with the president's sort of mission and diplomatic agenda more broadly,' they said.
CNN
01-07-2025
- Health
- CNN
Rubio hails end of USAID as study says its elimination could contribute to 14 million deaths in next 5 years
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the end of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Tuesday as a new analysis found that its demolition could contribute to 14 million deaths in the next five years. 'This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests,' Rubio said in a post on Substack Tuesday. 'As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests — will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,' he said. The rapid destruction of USAID, led by the Elon-Musk backed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has seen thousands of foreign assistance programs slashed, including many focused on lifesaving work. A study published Monday in The Lancet estimates that the USAID funding cuts could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030. Nearly a third of those deaths – more than 4.5 million – are estimated to be among children younger than 5. Authors of the study said that the effects of the funding cuts 'would be similar in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict.' 'Unlike those events, however, this crisis would stem from a conscious and avoidable policy choice—one whose burden would fall disproportionately on children and younger populations, and whose consequences could reverberate for decades,' they wrote. USAID funding was most likely to reduce mortality related to HIV/AIDS, followed by malaria, according to the Lancet study. Strong associations were also found with tropical diseases, diarrhoeal disease, nutritional deficiencies, lower respiratory infections, maternal mortality and tuberculosis. A senior State Department official downplayed the Lancet's findings, saying Tuesday, 'a lot of these sort of studies are based on incorrect assumptions about what Secretary Rubio intends to and has done before.' 'I think he's been very clear that a lot of the life-saving work that we do will continue and will be made more efficient,' the official said. However, aid groups have said that USAID's swift dismantlement, coupled with a sudden and sweeping freeze on foreign assistance in January, has already had devastating consequences. The official was largely dismissive of criticism of the administration's moves. 'You can go back and relitigate all these little decisions. That's not our focus. That's not the secretary's focus. We are excited about what sort of the America first foreign assistance agenda is going to look like and how much impact we can have moving forward,' they said. The official said the administration is looking at new metrics to gauge the success of US assistance work. 'We want to see sort of more bilateral engagement. We want to see more investment from our partners, co-investment. We want to see trade deals, compacts, agreements, to work together on stuff,' they said. 'Those are a big indicator of success for us.' 'What we want to do with this is build bridges bilaterally consistent with the president's sort of mission and diplomatic agenda more broadly,' they said.
