Last week, we published an estimate of cuts to USAID programs at the sectoral level based on two leaked documents covering cancelled and retained awards. Since then, a new version of the terminated and retained awards list was shared with Congress. Using that updated list, we revise our earlier sectoral estimates using the same approach as previously, and also estimate the scale of cuts to USAID country programs. All of this analysis comes with the same caveats as our last estimate (some repeated below).
The country analysis suggests a number of country programs may have been effectively closed down, particularly in Central and East Asia but also in West Africa, Central Europe, and the Americas. In absolute dollar value, by far the largest cut is to the Ukraine program, followed by Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
For the purposes of the country cuts map (below), we ignore aid that is not targeted to a specific country. In FY24–25, 20 percent of USAID awards by value listed their primary geographic destination as “World” or some other regional grouping, e.g., “Southern Africa Region” or “Latin America and Caribbean Region.”
The map shows three measures: absolute cuts and cuts as a share of a country’s baseline USAID programming. Notes are warranted in each case:
Absolute cuts in dollars: As discussed in our earlier post, assigning a dollar value to a specific USAID award is not straightforward: do you care about how much has already been spent under that award? Or how much could theoretically be spent in the future? Here we measure the dollar value of USAID awards in terms of the amount obligated during FY24–25 as reported in foreignassistance.gov. Note not all cancelled awards match data in foreignassistance.gov, so this figure will be an underestimate of the true scale of cuts.
Cuts as a percent of country program: Here we assume our new list of cancelled and retained awards combined is complete, and simply calculate the total of cancelled awards as a proportion of cancelled and retained values combined (both as measured by FY24/25 obligations). Note that because of the different approaches to calculating absolute and percentage cuts, these two numbers are not directly comparable. Note also this misses any support provided through regional and global grants.
Cuts as a percentage of recipient GNI: This uses the absolute dollar cuts as above and divides them by recipient GNI in current US dollars. Note because of both regional and global spending and because of missing data from foreignassistance.gov this will be an underestimate of the scale of the cuts on this measure.
The largest absolute dollar cut at the country level is $1.4 billion in Ukraine assistance. Ethiopia, the DRC, Colombia, South Africa, Palestine, Bangladesh, Kenya, Afghanistan, and Tanzania all see cuts over $200 million. Liberia sees the largest cut as a percentage of its economy, estimated at 1.6 percent of GNI. Afghanistan, Palestine, and Somalia are all over 1 percentage point. In terms of the existing USAID program, our data suggest in some cases country cuts may be equal to 95 percent or more of the value of programs including the following countries where programs were previously above $100 million: Madagascar, Georgia, El Salvador, Senegal, Nepal, Indonesia, Liberia, and the Philippines.
The updated sectoral analysis suggests that the total cuts may have been in the region of 38 percent of contract values measured by FY24–25 obligations, as compared to our estimate of 34 percent last week. The sectoral results remain broadly similar, with the exception that disaster readiness cuts are reduced by about 20 percentage points (see the table and chart below).
Table 1. Sectoral cuts (in millions $)
Sector
FY24–25 obligations
Cut
Preserved
Estimated percent cut
Total
44,317
13,237
21,313
38
Agriculture
1,444
1,173
268
81
Basic Education
1,085
745
7
99
Civil Society
464
328
1
100
Conflict Mitigation and Reconciliation
392
368
5
99
Direct Administrative Costs
4,397
587
35
94
Disaster Readiness
745
264
350
43
Family Planning and Reproductive Health
603
443
28
94
Good Governance
1,054
963
29
97
Higher Education
262
159
7
96
HIV/AIDS
5,744
1,091
4,342
20
Infrastructure
1,402
793
2
100
Macroeconomic Foundation for Growth
10,450
965
7,336
12
Malaria
978
257
458
36
Maternal and Child Health
1,017
877
79
92
Nutrition
516
133
206
39
Other
134
34
1
96
Other Public Health Threats
262
92
51
64
Pandemic Influenza and Other Emerging Threats (PIOET)
822
753
147
84
Policies, Regulations, and Systems
128
104
14
88
Political Competition and Consensus-Building
216
182
9
96
Private Sector Competitiveness
828
729
0
100
Protection, Assistance and Solutions
9,685
1,112
7,645
13
Rule of Law and Human Rights
543
427
75
85
Trade and Investment
237
201
30
87
Tuberculosis
391
180
139
56
Water Supply and Sanitation
517
276
47
86
Table 2. Country cuts data
Country
Cut as % country program
Cut as % GNI
Absolute cut ($m)
Ukraine
15
0.78
1,433
Democratic Republic of the Congo
34
0.6
387
Ethiopia
30
0.24
387
Colombia
82
0.09
309
Uganda
66
0.64
307
South Africa
89
0.07
261
Palestine
29
1.16
240
Bangladesh
56
0.05
229
Kenya
46
0.21
225
Afghanistan
36
1.29
223
Tanzania
38
0.28
216
Nigeria
23
0.05
178
Mozambique
47
0.9
172
Egypt
84
0.04
170
Honduras
94
0.52
167
Moldova
100
0.97
164
Haiti
50
0.82
164
El Salvador
100
0.47
150
Mali
66
0.76
149
Jordan
61
0.27
136
Georgia
100
0.46
130
Senegal
100
0.43
129
Nepal
100
0.31
128
Zambia
59
0.48
126
Malawi
64
0.94
116
Somalia
22
1.03
113
Yemen
15
0
112
India
94
0
111
Indonesia
98
0.01
108
Iraq
93
0.04
107
Philippines
95
0.02
104
Ghana
79
0.14
104
Liberia
98
2.59
103
Rwanda
65
0.74
102
Guatemala
52
0.09
90
Pakistan
85
0.02
83
Zimbabwe
35
0.24
83
Sudan
8
0.07
74
Lebanon
29
0
66
Kosovo
100
0.61
65
Vietnam
65
0.02
64
Madagascar
54
0.4
62
Armenia
96
0.26
61
Peru
69
0.02
60
Niger
34
0.36
59
Cambodia
98
0.14
59
Venezuela
30
0
56
South Sudan
8
0
54
Sri Lanka
100
0.07
53
Mexico
100
0
53
Ecuador
98
0.05
53
Myanmar
34
0.08
52
Syria
13
0
52
Cameroon
59
0.11
52
Tunisia
100
0.11
51
Burkina Faso
18
0.23
44
Serbia
100
0.04
35
Morocco
100
0.02
32
Namibia
85
0.24
28
Dominican Republic
77
0.02
27
Tajikistan
69
0.17
26
Libya
84
0.06
26
Swaziland
100
0.61
25
Guinea
100
0.12
25
Ivory Coast
67
0.03
23
Papua New Guinea
100
0.08
23
Benin
58
0.12
23
Uzbekistan
100
0.02
22
Macedonia
100
0.14
21
Laos
72
0.14
21
Bosnia and Herzegovina
100
0.07
18
East Timor
100
0.73
18
Lesotho
57
0.65
17
Burundi
82
0.63
17
Kyrgyzstan
78
0.12
16
Djibouti
99
0.36
14
Thailand
100
0
14
Brazil
77
0
13
Central African Republic
12
0.45
12
Belarus
100
0.02
11
Jamaica
73
0.06
11
Chad
8
0.08
11
China
100
0
9
Botswana
68
0.03
7
Nicaragua
68
0.04
6
Paraguay
100
0.01
6
Albania
100
0.02
6
Azerbaijan
52
0.01
5
Ireland
100
0
4
Comoros
100
0.27
4
Angola
44
0
3
Sierra Leone
100
0.05
3
Mongolia
100
0.02
3
Mauritania
100
0.03
3
Republic of the Congo
41
0.02
3
Kazakhstan
100
0
2
Japan
100
0
2
Vanuatu
100
0.14
2
Palau
100
0.58
2
Gambia
100
0.06
1
Fiji
100
0.02
1
Solomon Islands
100
0.05
1
Turkmenistan
100
0
1
Disclaimer
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise.
CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.
Image credit for social media/web: Martha VanLieshout / USAID