The Trump administration’s decision to impose a 90-day suspension in the country’s international development and humanitarian assistance has not only caused a major humanitarian issue for the recipients, but it has also hit the NGO community like a thunderbolt. Additionally, it has also highlighted how dependent the international NGO group is on American money.
Organizations have been a major part of American foreign policy for years. In general, they were divided into two groups: operating NGOs that provided guidance at the local level and lobbying NGOs whose profession was to denounce human rights violations, whether real or imagined.
Since the start of the Cold War, Washington has been a force for international support through Organizations. There was scarcely a Socialist party at the time that didn’t get any secret support from the Soviet Union.
Washington reciprocated by providing financial assistance to the likes of independent trade unions or media outlets, most recently through the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ).
President John Kennedy arranged for Washington’s international aid programs to come together under one roof in 1961. In order to achieve this, he persuaded Congress to establish USAID, which became the principal provider of British foreign aid under the guidance of the State Department. But, the CIA continued to provide funding for particular programs through its own channels in parallel.
However, these eventually became ineffective, and in 1983, a congressional act created the National Endowment for Democracy ( NED ). The NED took over from the CIA the delivery of grants to organizations that attempted to promote “democracy” because it was structured like an NGO and essentially not a branch of the US government.
The World Uighur Congress, Chinese rebels, protesters in Hong Kong, several Tibetan parties, and democracy activists in Iraq, Tunisia, and Egypt are supported financially by the NED with a recent US budget of$ 315 million.
In contrast, the NED steers clear of funding extremist organizations in nations that are tightly related to the US, such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Despite the influence of the NED, Elon Musk characterized as a “scam,” it is a peripheral person in comparison to USAID.
With a staff of about 10,000 people and a budget of about$ 44 billion in 2023, USAID is a global player with presence in some 170 nations. And despite its alleged “development” goals, 10 % of its budget is used to fund humanitarian aid and 10 % for care initiatives.
In a wider sense, the United States contributes about 50 % of all humanitarian assistance distributed worldwide. This was equal to 1.17 % of the overall cost of the American federal government in 2023, or$ 71.9 billion. Additionally, the United States makes up about 25 % of the budget of the UN.
USAID uses NGOs to channel its money so that it can carry out its projects, like almost all government donors, but unlike most others, it does not immediately carry out their programs. So, each project has three stars: the beneficiary, the NGO that funds the project, and the company of funds, as in this case USAID.
USAID now distributes about 52 % of its aid through NGOs, or about$ 21 billion. The remaining 34 % of the aid is distributed through 30 UN organizations, and the remaining 30 % is distributed through for-profit companies like Deloitte.
There are currently 42, 000 active NGOs in the world that oversee a total of about$ 400 billion. About 1,300 local and international NGOs serve as USAID’s functional partners within this habitat.
Some people oversee jobs worth hundreds of millions of dollars, while others oversee programs worth nothing. Regardless of how much money they manage, the problem they are currently facing is fundamental to their very life.
Every Charities has fees. These are paid from system allocations, which cover them. The Trump presidency has not only damage the consumers by freezing funds used for aid projects. It also dealt what could turn out to be a lethal blow to hundreds of NGOs, who figuratively lost the jobs they deducted their overhead from within a day.
The world has seen the effects of money being frozen. In Thailand, NGOs that provide health care to numerous refugee camps from Myanmar are currently considering shutting down and hiring their team.
A third of its 8, 000-strong staff is already being let go by the Danish Refugee Council, which is based in Europe and has operations all over the world and receives the second-largest funding from USAID. Similar events are taking place in Africa, where not only include TB prevention initiatives been suspended, but also the organizations that run them are on the cusp of closing.
There is no denying that the charitable ecology has developed a unique existence over the past few years. Governments bear the majority of the blame for this growth because they found it simpler to signal checks than to follow whom they were addressed.
The end result was a gradual but steady expansion of the institutions, whether they were UN or NGOs. For instance, when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees established its office in Beijing in 1980 to assist in the settlement of some 260 000 Vietnamese migrants in China, it had a$ 50 million programme led by a middle-level foreign staff member and a nearby group.
The exact UN agency currently runs a$ 500,000 system in China under the direction of five foreign staff members. The same design continued to exist throughout the entire charitable habitat.
It is a given that there needs to be some transformation in the philanthropic habitat. Additionally, it is a fact that the program is not designed to either check or reform itself. Therefore, if there is some reformation, it can only be achieved through external assistance, which raises two issues: by whom and how?
Given how much money it contributes in comparison to other countries, the sole source of reformation could be the United States. It would have required skillful usage of a knife given the complexity of the situation and the fact that, in many cases, the beneficiaries were among the poorest. Rather, it witnessed the brutal use of a saw.
Without a doubt, many of the people who receive support from USAID do not realize that it is coming from the United States or are not politically active. As a result, Washington receives nothing material in return for the assistance it offers.
Although it appears that the Trump administration is in charge, it overlooks the possibility that the most powerful nation in the world may have a responsibility that goes beyond simply commercial concerns. Is at least the least doubtful whether this complete lack of empathy may contribute to making America “great” once more.