The recent USAID funding cuts has sent shockwaves through humanitarian and development efforts worldwide. For families already struggling to rebuild from conflict, food insecurity, and disease, these sudden cuts are not just a policy shift — they are a devastating reality, disproportionately affecting women, children, and the most vulnerable.
As a network of international organizations supporting vulnerable livestock-dependent communities, VSF International is deeply concerned about the impact of the USAID’s funding cuts, which has already resulted in the suspension of essential programs and emergency response implemented by the members of the VSF network in Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and Mali, as well as two global capacity building projects.
These initiatives are crucial in combating livestock diseases, preventing zoonotic outbreaks, and ensuring the resilience of smallholder farmers and pastoralists in some of the most fragile areas. With project activities ended, affected communities face rising risks to food security, income loss, and worsening economic conditions.
Two projects led by VSF International have been affected by the USAID project termination:
- The project on Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) has produced some landmark documents and guidelines to support the formal recognition of CAHWs and good practices in CAHW project implementation. Unfortunately, the project has been interrupted just before we were able to organise three regional workshops in West Africa, East Africa and South East Asia. These workshops would have enabled the wider dissemination and promotion of the Handbook for planning and managing CAHW programmes and the WOAH Competency and Curriculum Guidelines for CAHWs, and the uptake of these documents by the countries concerned.
- Similarly, the five-year Local Engagement and Response Network (LEARN) project, which aimed to strengthen the capacity of local NGOs in 14 fragile countries to respond to infectious disease outbreaks in humanitarian crises, was halted after only one year of implementation, leaving all efforts to build a robust capacity-building and training programme – which may be key in prevention, surveillance and early warning of existing or emerging infectious diseases – unused. VSF International’s role in LEARN was to provide cross-cutting technical assistance for the integration of the One Health approach, integrating the perspective of animal health surveillance and zoonotic infectious disease outbreak preparedness and response.
Following the USAID stop-work order in January and the subsequent project termination notice, the 80 local and national NGOs that should have benefited from the project were suddenly left behind. This represented a missed opportunity to enhance multi-sectoral coordination to safeguard public health in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.
Urgent Need for Global Support and Solutions
USAID has been a cornerstone donor for international livestock development, global health, and food security programs. The withdrawal of these resources weakens global efforts to combat hunger and malnutrition and prevent diseases, further widening the gap between needs and available funding.
The halt of these funding, combined with recent (or announced) funding cuts by several European countries, including France, Belgium, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Germany, put the development and humanitarian sector at risk of significant setbacks at a time when global crises are escalating.
At VSF International, we remain steadfast in our commitment to improving the well-being of livestock-dependent communities. Despite the funding challenges, we will continue to seek innovative solutions and new partnerships to support those who need it most. However, collective global action is necessary to mitigate the far-reaching consequences of this crisis.