What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

Analysis What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries
The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid and development projects, including in Gaza, but experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment. (AFP)
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Updated 09 March 2025
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What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries
  • The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid projects it says “do not align with US national interests”
  • Experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment

LONDON: The impact of the Trump administration’s decision to slash $60 billion in aid funding and cancel 90 percent of contracts by the US Agency for International Development is being felt by millions of the most vulnerable people in the Middle East and North Africa.

In countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen, lifesaving aid programs to feed and provide healthcare for huge populations affected by conflict have halted. In Jordan, hundreds of development projects to boost the economy face an uncertain future and thousands of jobs may disappear.

The widespread halt in aid was confirmed just as countries across the region started to mark the holy month of Ramadan.

In an internal memo and filings in federal lawsuits, the US administration said it is eliminating more than 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world. The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.”




Displaced Sudanese people at a camp near the town of Tawila in North Darfur. (AFP)

More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

Many Republican lawmakers believe USAID has been wasteful and harbors a liberal agenda. President Donald Trump has also promised to dramatically reduce spending and shrink the federal government.

USAID’s supporters say the agency not only provides vital assistance around the world, but for less than one percent of the federal budget, it is also America’s greatest soft power tool.

The crisis first arose on Jan. 20 when Trump signed an executive order halting all foreign assistance for a 90-day review period because the aid industry was “not aligned with American interests.”

Within days, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was homing in on USAID programs, and by last week termination letters had been sent to nongovernmental organizations around the world.

Nearly 5,800 of USAID’s 6,200 multi-year contracts worth $54 billion were cut. The State Department also cut $4.4 billion in foreign aid-related grants.

Much of the agency’s vast array of work, from providing food to the starving, healthcare programs and economic development initiatives, has been stopped.

Many promised waivers for lifesaving programs have reportedly failed to materialize.

More than 6,000 of USAID’s 10,000 staff have been placed on administrative leave or fired, and tens of thousands of people working around the world have also lost their jobs.

Control of USAID has been moved to the State Department, which is locked in legal battles over the cuts. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The MENA region received $3.9 billion from USAID in 2023. The sudden removal of the agency’s support could cause further suffering and instability in the region, Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House, told Arab News.

“We’re talking about budgets of billions, which goes to projects between humanitarian and development,” he said. “The minute you take it away, you make people either suffer from humanitarian crises or you stop the development of these countries.

“If you want to maintain stability in the Middle East, which is important to the United States, you need economic development.”

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Below are details of how the shuttering of USAID has affected people and projects across the region.

IRAQ

In a country where more than 1 million people have still not returned to their homes after the war with Daesh extremists ended in 2017, USAID provided vital support to vulnerable populations.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the agency has spent billions trying to help Iraq rebuild. USAID funded clean water supplies, food aid, healthcare and support for women victims of violence.

The agency also provided grants to grow businesses and boost local economies and funded development projects to improve water supplies and food production.

The amount spent in Iraq in 2023 was more than $220 million, but many of the long-term projects, which have now stopped, were based on spending commitments over many years.

One USAID officer working on Iraq told Arab News that he could not imagine what would happen to Iraq’s displaced population without the agency’s funding.




USAID has spent billions trying to support Iraqis. (AFP)

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “I shudder to think of the human impacts of this, the lives lost, the time … it will take to ever recover from this. The whole sector is destroyed.”

Before the widespread canceling of contracts last week, he said some UN agencies and NGOs continued with essential assistance as they tried to interpret Trump’s executive order and the promised waivers.

Now everything related to USAID funding had stopped, said the officer, whose decade-long career with the agency was also terminated with 15 days’ notice.

This included assistance to the 100,000 displaced people in 21 formal camps in the northern Kurdish region.

The USAID officer said the halt was particularly bitter for Iraqis given the recent history of US foreign policy in the country.

He said the halting of aid risks plunging Iraq back into chaos by opening the way for extremist ideologies to regain traction.

“We are pulling the rug out from under what the US would consider a critical ally in this region.”

SYRIA

The humanitarian community was just getting to grips with a new Syria after the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.

The approach to delivering aid to the country during its 14-year civil war was hampered by the division of territory under the warring parties, along with international sanctions against the Assad regime.

Finally, it seemed, a coordinated surge of humanitarian operations could take place with new rulers in Damascus in control of much of the country.

“It was the opportunity in Syria for the first time in 14 years to really do an ‘all of country’ response,” Imrul Islam from the Syria International NGO Regional Forum told Arab News.




Al-Hol camp in Syria’s northeastern Al-Hasakah Governorate. (AFP/File)

The war had left more than 16 million Syrians needing humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

Islam estimates that USAID paid for at least a quarter of the entire humanitarian funding in Syria, with the northern parts of the country particularly reliant on NGOs to deliver essential aid.

When the “stop work” orders were sent in January from USAID to the NGOs they funded, it was a bitter blow.

Aid organizations in Syria were left in limbo as most projects ground to a halt almost overnight. The waivers granted for lifesaving aid failed to deliver a release of funds, so organizations continued essential deliveries by running up debt.

Last week’s blanket termination of contracts means that almost everything previously funded by USAID has now stopped, including operations considered lifesaving.

NGO coordination forums in Syria are assessing the scale of the fallout, but already Islam warned that “people will die” as a result.




NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance. (AFP/File)

Several international NGOs rely on USAID for 95 percent of their funding and are now deciding whether they will have to leave Syria altogether.

As of February, NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance.

In just northeast Syria, at least 2,800 per month would lose access to surgical procedures. “Thousands and thousands” of people are losing their jobs, Islam said.

Millions of people, he added, would lose access to assistance in the north of the country.

GAZA

The USAID freeze has jeopardized aid supplies to Gaza, where Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and other militant groups has left the entire population of more than 2 million reliant on humanitarian assistance.

It also risks undermining the ceasefire agreed in January that halted the devastating 15-month conflict.

USAID has provided $2.1 billion in humanitarian assistance in Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the war.

The agency said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza.

Staff working for USAID on Palestine have been laid off. The organizations that deliver aid inside Gaza have also stopped working, their contracts have been terminated, and local Palestinian employees have lost their jobs.

“It’s a very bleak picture,” Dave Harden, a former USAID mission director for Gaza and the West Bank, told Arab News.




USAID said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza. (AFP/File)

“There’s no people, there’s no officers, there’s no staff, there’s no budget, there’s no (Washington) D.C. back office and there’s no active agreements.”

He agreed that it placed extra pressure on an already fragile ceasefire that relies on a massive aid delivery operation to alleviate the suffering.

“The risks are higher if there is any reduction in food,” he said.

So far, he believed UN reserves of food and other aid have filled the gap left by USAID, but this will start to run out.

Harden said the loss of USAID was not only devastating for Palestinians but also bad for Israel, which often used the agency as a communication channel.

JORDAN

As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally.

In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from the agency with much of it being used to support economic development.

While not suffering the scale of the humanitarian struggles in other countries in the region, the USAID funding supported businesses and government projects.




In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from USAID with much of it being used to support economic development. (AFP/File)

The funding was so entwined in Jordan’s economy that it accounted for more than 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2024, Reuters reported, citing JPMorgan.

The cuts in funding have rippled through the economy, leading to thousands of job losses according to some reports.

Rana Sweis spent a year going through an extensive application process to secure funding for a project for her Amman-based media and marketing company, Wishbox Media.

She then waited more than four months before approval came for an $81,000 grant from USAID’s Makanati project, which encouraged women into work in Jordan.

The year-long project started in May 2024 with money released in monthly increments in line with regular progress reports.

When she was told in January that funding would be frozen, her company was more than 80 percent through the promised work on empowering women in the workforce.

This included a 25-minute documentary, social media campaigns, infographics and other multimedia production.




As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally. (AFP/File)

Sweis said they now expect to lose nearly half of the grant but still hope to receive two pending payments left outstanding.

She had to let one staff member go and cancel the company’s internship program. “It’s a big loss for a small company, but what can I do?” she told Arab News.

“People are losing their jobs in Washington, people are not getting all these humanitarian lifesaving vaccines in Africa, and that’s how I deal with the loss we had.”

While she may be putting the impact on her company in perspective, hundreds of businesses across Jordan would have been taking similar or even greater financial hits in recent weeks.

“It’s a shock for Wishbox, but it’s a shock for me personally because USAID is such an integral part of Jordan and the development of Jordan,” she said. “It’s in every sector, in education, in water and in every level, from the government to civil society.”

YEMEN

Yemen is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with half of the country’s population requiring assistance, according to the UN.

With one-third of the money to pay for that aid coming from the US — mostly through USAID — there is deep concern about the impact the agency’s cutbacks will have on the country.

The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthi militia, backed by Iran, took control of the capital and largest city, Sanaa, demanding a new government.




The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024. (AFP/File)

Since the eruption of the war, the US has spent nearly $5.9 billion on the humanitarian response, according to a US Embassy statement last year.

One aid worker in Yemen told Arab News that projects across the country helping feed families, providing critical healthcare and improving water sanitation had been halted.

The worker said the cuts had come at a particularly difficult time with the start of Ramadan.

 


Israeli strikes on Gaza kill more than 90 people in the last 48 hours, Palestinians say

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill more than 90 people in the last 48 hours, Palestinians say
Updated 18 min 43 sec ago
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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill more than 90 people in the last 48 hours, Palestinians say

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill more than 90 people in the last 48 hours, Palestinians say
  • Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 90 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in the last 48 hours.
  • The dead include at least 15 people killed overnight, among them women and children, some of who were sheltering in a designated humanitarian zone, according to hospital staff

DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 90 people in the last 48 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday, as Israeli troops ramp up attacks to pressure Hamas to release its hostages and disarm.
The dead include 15 people who were killed overnight, among them women and children, some of who were sheltering in a designated humanitarian zone, according to hospital staff.
At least 11 people were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, several of them in a tent in the Mwasi area where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living, hospital worker said. Israel has designated it as a humanitarian zone.
Four other people were killed in separate strikes in Rafah city, including a mother and her daughter, according to the European Hospital, where the bodies were brought.
Israel has vowed to intensify attacks across Gaza and occupy large “security zones” inside the strip. For six weeks Israel also has blockaded Gaza, barring the entry of food and other goods.
This week, aid groups raised alarm saying that thousands of children have become malnourished, and most people are barely eating one meal a day as stocks dwindle, according to the United Nations.
On Friday, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the head of the World Health Organization’s eastern Mediterranean office, urged the new US ambassador in Israel, Mike Huckabee, to push the country to lift Gaza’s blockade so medicines and other aid can enter the strip.
“I would wish for him to go in and see the situation firsthand,” she said.
In his first appearance as ambassador on Friday, Huckabee visited the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem’s Old City. He inserted a prayer into the wall, which he said was handwritten by US President Donald Trump. Huckabee said every effort was being made to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive has since killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food production capabilities. The war has displaced around 90 percent of the population, with hundreds of thousands of people living in tent camps and bombed-out buildings.


Syria president hosts Republican US congressman in Damascus

Syria president hosts Republican US congressman in Damascus
Updated 19 April 2025
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Syria president hosts Republican US congressman in Damascus

Syria president hosts Republican US congressman in Damascus
  • Al-Sharaa meets with US Congressman Cory Mills in Damascus
  • Washington has already eased some sanctions on Syria affecting essential services

DAMASCUS: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has met with a US congressman, the Syrian presidency said on Saturday, the first such visit by an American lawmaker since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani was also present at the meeting with Republican Cory Mills at the presidential palace in Damascus, a presidency statement said.
Mills arrived in Syria on Friday along with Marlin Stutzman, another politician from the Republican party of US President Donald Trump.
In late December, less than two weeks after a coalition spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham toppled Assad, Washington scrapped a long-standing reward for the arrest of the new leader.
The decision to drop the bounty for Sharaa followed “positive messages” from a first meeting with the new authorities, a senior US diplomat said at the time.
The new government, dominated by Sharaa loyalists, has been pushing for Assad-era sanctions to be lifted to revive Syria’s economy and support reconstruction after nearly 14 years of war.
Washington has already eased some sanctions on Syria affecting essential services, although it is a temporary measure as the United States and other governments wait to see how the new authorities exercise their power before enacting wider exemptions.
The United States, which has welcomed the formation of an interim government, has demanded progress on issues such as the fight against terrorism.
Nevertheless, Washington announced on Friday that it would halve the number of US troops deployed to the country to fight the Daesh group, bringing their number to fewer than 1,000.
International sanctions have weighed heavily on the Syrian economy, with around 90 percent of people living in poverty, according to UN figures.
Next week, Syrian ministers and the country’s central bank chief are due to attend the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s spring meetings in Washington, sources with knowledge of the meetings told AFP.
The congressmen’s visit came as Washington warned on Friday of “imminent attacks” in Syria and particularly in “locations frequented by tourists,” according to an alert posted on the US embassy’s website.
The embassy’s operations in Damascus have been suspended since 2012, the year after the brutal repression of anti-government protests under Assad sparked civil war.


Earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Afghanistan-Tajikistan border, GFZ says

Earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Afghanistan-Tajikistan border, GFZ says
Updated 19 April 2025
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Earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Afghanistan-Tajikistan border, GFZ says

Earthquake of magnitude 5.8 strikes Afghanistan-Tajikistan border, GFZ says
  • The quake was at a depth of 92 km

DUBAI: An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 struck the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border on Saturday, German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said. The quake was at a depth of 92 km (57 miles), GFZ said.


Survivors describe executions, arson in attack on Sudan’s Zamzam camp

Survivors describe executions, arson in attack on Sudan’s Zamzam camp
Updated 19 April 2025
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Survivors describe executions, arson in attack on Sudan’s Zamzam camp

Survivors describe executions, arson in attack on Sudan’s Zamzam camp
  • UN reports 400,000 fled Zamzam, 300-400 killed in attack
  • RSF aims to consolidate control in Darfur by defeating army

Sitting in a crowd of mothers and children under the harsh sun, Najlaa Ahmed described the moment the Rapid Support Forces men poured into Darfur’s Zamzam displacement camp, looting and burning homes as shells rained down and drones flew overhead.
She lost track of most of her family as she fled. “I don’t know what’s become of them, my mother, father, siblings, my grandmother, I came here with strangers,” she said — one of six survivors who told Reuters of arson and executions in the raid.
The Rapid Support Forces — two years into their conflict with Sudan’s army — seized the massive camp in North Darfur a week ago in an attack that the United Nations says left at least 300 people dead and forced 400,000 to flee.
The RSF did not respond to a request for comment, but has denied accusations of atrocities and said the camp was being used base being used as a base by forces loyal to the army. Humanitarian groups have denounced the raid as a targeted attack on civilians already facing famine.
Najlaa Ahmed managed to get her children to safety in Tawila — a town 60 km (40 miles) from Zamzam controlled by a neutral rebel group — the third time, she said, she had been forced to flee the RSF in a matter of months.
She said she watched seven people die of hunger and thirst, and others succumb to their injuries on her latest journey.
The RSF has posted videos of its second-in-command, Abdelrahim Dagalo, promising to provide displaced people with food and shelter in the camp where famine was determined in August.

BODIES FOUND
More than 280,000 people have sought refuge in Tawila according to the General Coordination for Displaced People and Refugees, an advocacy group, on top of the half a million that have arrived since the war broke out in April 2023.
Speaking from Al-Fashir — the capital of North Darfur 15 km north of Zamzam which the RSF is trying to take from the army — one man who asked not to be named said he had found the bodies of 24 people killed in an attack on a religious school, some of them lined up.
“They started entering people’s houses, looting... they killed some people ... After this people fled, running in different directions. There were fires. They had soldiers burning buildings to create more terror.”
Another man, an elder in the camp, said the RSF had killed 14 people at close range in a mosque near his home.
“People who are scared always go to the mosque to seek refuge, but they went into every mosque and shot them,” he said.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
One video verified by Reuters showed soldiers yelling at a group of older men and young men outside a mosque, interrogating them about a supposed military base.
Other videos verified by Reuters showed RSF soldiers shooting an unarmed man as others lay on the ground, calling them dogs. One showed armed men celebrating as they stood around a group of dead bodies.
The RSF has said such videos are fake.

FIGHT FOR DARFUR
The capture of Zamzam comes as the RSF tries to consolidate its control of the Darfur region. Victory in Al-Fashir would boost the RSF’s efforts to set up a parallel government to the one controlled by the army which has been on the upswing lately, retaking control of the capital Khartoum.
The war between the Sudanese army — which has also been accused of atrocities, charges it denies — and the RSF broke out in April 2023 over plans to integrate the two forces. The RSF’s roots lie in Darfur’s Janjaweed militias, whose attacks in the early 2000s led to the creation of Zamzam and other displacement camps across Darfur.
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health said in a report on Wednesday that more than 1.7 square km of the camp, including the main market, had been burned, and that fires had continued every day since Friday.
The researchers also saw checkpoints around the camp, and witnesses told Reuters that some people were being prevented from leaving.
In Tawila, Medical aid agency MSF received 154 injured people, the youngest of them seven months old, almost all with gunshot wounds, emergency field coordinator Marion Ramstein told Reuters.
Supplies of food, water and shelter were already low before the new arrivals.
“The lucky ones are the ones who find a tree to sit under,” Ramstein said.
Ahmed Mohamed, who arrived in Tawila this week, said he was robbed of all his possessions by soldiers on the road, and was now sleeping on the bare ground.
“We are in need of everything a human being would need,” he said.


Tunisian court sentences opposition leaders to jail terms of 13 to 66 years

Tunisian court sentences opposition leaders to jail terms of 13 to 66 years
Updated 19 April 2025
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Tunisian court sentences opposition leaders to jail terms of 13 to 66 years

Tunisian court sentences opposition leaders to jail terms of 13 to 66 years
  • The opposition says the charges were fabricated and the trial a symbol of President Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule
  • The state news agency did not provide further details about the sentences.

TUNIS: A Tunisian court handed jail terms of 13 to 66 years to opposition leaders, businessmen and lawyers on charges of conspiring against state security, the state news agency TAP reported on Saturday, citing a judicial official.
The opposition says the charges were fabricated and the trial a symbol of President Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule.
Rights groups say Saied has had full control over the judiciary since he dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree. He dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council in 2022.
The state news agency did not provide further details about the sentences.
Forty people, including high-profile politicians, businessmen and journalists, were being prosecuted in the case. More than 20 have fled abroad since being charged.
Some of the opposition defendants — including Ghazi Chaouachi, Issam Chebbi, Jawahar Ben Mbrak, Abdelhamid Jlassi, Ridha BelHajj and Khyam Turki — have been in custody since being detained in 2023.
“In my entire life, I have never witnessed a trial like this. It’s a farce, the rulings are ready, and what is happening is scandalous and shameful,” said lawyer Ahmed Souab, who represents the defendants, on Friday before the ruling was handed down.
Authorities say the defendants, who include former officials and former head of intelligence, Kamel Guizani, tried to destabilize the country and overthrow Saied.
“This authoritarian regime has nothing to offer Tunisians except more repression,” the leader of the opposition Workers’ Party, Hamma Hammami, said.
Saied rejects accusations that he is a dictator and says he is fighting chaos and corruption that is rampant among the political elite.