The impact of discontinued funding
If you were a subsistence farmer today, where would you turn?
USAID contracts supported humanitarian and development work in 160 countries in 2023, offering food distribution or healthcare. Recent cuts to this funding will likely eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a total cut of $54 billion. When funding of such magnitude is uncertain, what impact does that have on people benefitting from it?
Imagine that you live in a small village. You started your life over from scratch when your house was destroyed in a flood several years ago. Since then, the climate has been unpredictable, meaning that every harvest is a gamble for your family. Yet your garden is your main source of subsistence. There are few jobs to be had in your village, and whenever you’ve tried to sell the excess produce from that garden, none of your neighbours have the means to purchase them.
Still, you keep trying. You learn sustainable agriculture methods through a free community program and employ them. Sure enough, your crops grow stronger than you could’ve imagined. You participate in additional livelihood skills training and you’re able to supplement your income by doing some tailoring. A Village Savings and Loans Association has taught you about financial management, and it has opened new possibilities for you and your family.
But one day, you discover that the local clinic has lost funding and is no longer able to provide you with anti-retroviral medication. For you and others who live with HIV/AIDS (you contracted it at birth), this medication is something you rely on. Without it, you fear that your next bout of pneumonia could be your last. What will your children do if you can’t help feed them?
With increasingly limited options, you begin to look around for alternative ways to survive. You ask your brother for help, but his contract position with the local clinic was terminated due to discontinued foreign funding. He is struggling, too. You remember how your cousin found herself in the same position as you 10 years ago, and how she moved to a neighbouring country with more opportunities. But conflict between your governments has caused that border to close and travel in the region seems to be fraught with danger.
Where will you turn next?
but many of these clinics have lost funding for other projects. This has
led to a lack of staff and supplies.
World Renew & its partners
The story above isn’t the story of any particular person, but it is an amalgam of the many, many stories that the team I work with has heard from communities across the Global South. As climate change, conflict and the withdrawal of USAID funding lead to dire consequences, World Renew is faithfully pursuing our mission of mercy and compassion. Support offered through World Renew and our partners around the globe can bring hope in situations of despair. Advocating for funding from our governments can help us extend resources to those who have the most difficulty accessing them (see worldrenew.ca/foodgrains for ideas on how to start). And praying for our global neighbours is what we’re called to do as Christ followers.
A colleague shared this reminder from the global Christian community: “The most effective, integrated and faithful measures to address poverty and injustice are rooted in local churches that were established hundreds of years before USAID was formed. These organizations will long outlive any contracts or agreements with any government. As we navigate the uncertainties of our time, our efforts will be most fruitful if we work in unity.”
These are not statistics, Lord.
These are your beloved.
“Lord, you have told us what you require of us: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with you (Micah 6:8). Lord, we come with heavy hearts, knowing that justice has been withheld, that mercy has been denied. We lament the choices of those in power who have turned away from the suffering of your children. We grieve policies that strip life-saving aid from those in deepest need, funding that has been withdrawn from clinics where babies take their first breaths, from hospitals where mothers fight to survive childbirth, from communities where clean water and medicine once flowed.
“God of justice, open the eyes of those who lead. Let us see that when aid is cut, it is not just numbers on a page – it is real lives lost, those that Jesus looks in the eye and declares, ‘You are mine!’ It is a mother in Malawi who can no longer receive the medicine that kept her child alive. It is a grandmother in Guatemala who watches her family go hungry because food assistance has stopped. It is a village in Ethiopia where children die from preventable diseases because the clinic’s doors have closed. These are not statistics, Lord. These are your beloved.
“So we pray, O God, for the nations of the world – for leaders and governments, for those with wealth and power – that they may not turn away from the least of these. May they open their hands and their hearts, not in charity alone, but in justice. Let them see that when we lift up the poor, we do not lose; we all rise.
“We pray for those on the front lines – for our church partners and sister organizations – who are your hands and feet among the poor. Strengthen them. Protect them. Bless the work of their hands so that those in need may receive not just bread, but dignity; not just aid, but hope.”
Excerpt from a prayer shared by Carol Bremer-Bennett, World Renew U.S. Co-Director, at a Prayer Vigil for Foreign Aid in Washington, DC, on March 11.
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