USAID Shutdown: Solidarity and Strategy

A state­ment from the RINGO Project on the shut­down of USAID.

The news last week about a tem­po­rary halt to USAID expen­di­ture, which rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of all Inter­na­tion­al Aid, will impact many civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions through­out the world, includ­ing INGOs. Some ana­lysts have argued that up to 40% of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions who are in receipt of USAID fund­ing may close in the next few months if fund­ing isn’t restored. Even more impor­tant­ly the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple that these funds sup­port would be neg­a­tive­ly affect­ed. It is cru­cial to remem­ber that behind these sta­tis­tics are fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions that rely on these funds to access health­care, edu­ca­tion, liveli­hoods and oth­er essen­tial ser­vices. The rip­ple effect of these cuts extends beyond num­bers, it threat­ens the resilience and progress of vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions.

The RINGO Project express our sol­i­dar­i­ty with all of those impact­ed and know that this will be a dif­fi­cult and unsta­ble time for many peo­ple through­out the world, as the pic­ture evolves. Many INGOs, in par­tic­u­lar, have relied heav­i­ly on USAID fund­ing, and we appre­ci­ate that their staff will be deeply wor­ried about their part­ners, as well as their own liveli­hoods. This is a time to sup­port our col­leagues, wher­ev­er in the world they are, be it in the US, or any­where in the major­i­ty world.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the long-term trend towards a much-reduced For­eign Aid sys­tem has been com­ing for some time. USAID is not alone in cut­ting expen­di­ture. Many oth­er donors, includ­ing Swiss Aid, the Nether­lands, Swe­den and Aus­tralia, have all sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced bud­gets in recent days and months. In this chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment, non-tra­di­tion­al donors such as phil­an­thropic foun­da­tions, pri­vate sec­tor actors, and region­al fund­ing ini­tia­tives have a crit­i­cal role to play in fill­ing the gaps. These actors must step up to pro­vide flex­i­ble, acces­si­ble, and sus­tain­able fund­ing to ensure the con­ti­nu­ity of vital pro­grammes.

Whilst we have been work­ing hard to build a sys­tem that shifts more pow­er and resources to local civ­il soci­ety for the past few years, we recog­nise the impor­tance of Inter­na­tion­al Aid in this endeav­our. The com­mit­ments of USAID’s pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion to achieve 25% of fund­ing going to local actors by 2030 was ambi­tious and much-need­ed. It also gave a wel­come sign­post to oth­er donors to fol­low suit. A donor state­ment on local­ly-led devel­op­ment is now sup­port­ed by 20 bilat­er­al donors and mul­ti­ple phil­an­thropic actors in the US and Europe.

Giv­en the sud­den shift in pol­i­cy to ‘Amer­i­ca First’ we know that this tar­get is unlike­ly to be reached, and that even exist­ing local recip­i­ents may like­ly see their fund­ing with­drawn beyond this cur­rent freeze. We urge donors who have endorsed the prin­ci­ples of local­ly-led devel­op­ment to not only main­tain their com­mit­ments but to accel­er­ate their efforts. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate true lead­er­ship by cham­pi­oning fund­ing mod­els that pri­ori­tise local actors and min­imise bureau­crat­ic bar­ri­ers.

At the same time, the Aid sys­tem has long been mired in com­pro­mise. For­eign pol­i­cy approach­es in many coun­tries – not just the US – have often been accused of neo-colo­nial­ism and not always reflect­ing the real needs and inde­pen­dence of local peo­ple. Sys­tems of account­abil­i­ty, risk man­age­ment and bar­ri­ers to fund­ing were all pri­ori­tis­ing inter­na­tion­al actors over local organ­i­sa­tions. In RINGO, we want to see an Aid sys­tem that rebal­ances his­tor­i­cal pow­er imbal­ances. This prin­ci­ple recog­nis­es our shared respon­si­bil­i­ty, with gov­ern­ments, to a bet­ter world, as artic­u­lat­ed in the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. This requires that as civ­il soci­ety, we cede some col­lec­tive pow­er to those clos­est to the issues, and equal­ly demands that we nour­ish civ­il soci­eties every­where so that they are well-resourced, inde­pen­dent and sus­tain­able. In light of the recent announce­ment, we know that many civ­il soci­ety actors in the major­i­ty world are accel­er­at­ing their approach­es in this are­na.

In this time of pop­ulism, con­flict and cli­mate crises it becomes even more crit­i­cal that we re-imag­ine how civ­il soci­ety can be resourced and struc­tured. For many who we work with through­out the world, this is a wake-up call to find alter­na­tive resourc­ing, both to enable equi­table part­ner­ships when we work with gov­ern­ment and civ­il soci­ety, but also to be able to hold gov­ern­ments to account and con­tribute to build­ing a bet­ter future. Our col­league Charles Kojo Vandy­ck has writ­ten a blog explor­ing the role of Inter­na­tion­al Aid going for­ward. RINGO remains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing civ­il soci­ety work­ing inter­na­tion­al­ly, region­al­ly and local­ly, to build the civ­il soci­ety we need, not the one that has evolved since WWII, over­ly depen­dent on For­eign Aid.

RINGO has a long-term aspi­ra­tion to build a more equi­table civ­il soci­ety, one in which pow­er and resources are shared, as we work towards our com­mon aims of health, well-being and jus­tice for all, and we wel­come any­one in civ­il soci­ety to join us in this endeav­our. Our vision is one where local­ly-led devel­op­ment is not mere­ly a prin­ci­ple but a real­i­ty. We seek to ampli­fy the voic­es of local lead­ers, empow­er­ing them to shape the future of their com­mu­ni­ties on their terms. This is the civ­il soci­ety we aim to co-cre­ate: equi­table, sus­tain­able, and ground­ed in local real­i­ties.

Pho­to by Roth Melin­da on Unsplash