Myriad Canada partners warn of dramatic impact of USAID termination

The decision to terminate international development funding is having devastating consequences around the world, including among partner organisations of Myriad Canada. The impact is massive, as, according to the UN, the US provided 40% of all humanitarian aid in 2024.

The US government announced in February that it would be ending the vast majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes. About 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programmes have been cut. Thousands of employees have been put on leave and people working overseas have been recalled.

The agency spends $40 billion – about 0.6% of total government spending – on humanitarian aid, much of which goes towards health programmes. The vast majority goes to Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, primarily for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.

Vulnerable people

On top of that decision, the US also cut funding to UN agencies. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, for example, loses 40% of its budget. This is all the more damaging since this agency works with millions of extremely vulnerable displaced persons. Forced displacement is at record levels – 123 million people, with the figure set to rise.

Myriad Canada works with many partners globally who are already seeing the impact of USAID cuts on the communities they serve.

Among them is MSI Reproductive Choices, an NGO that provides sexual and reproductive healthcare services, enabling women all over the world to choose their own futures. It has 9,000 staff members in 36 countries.

“When the stop-work order came through, we had to tell our outreach teams in remote areas to turn back,” says Lalaina Razafinirinasoa, MSI’s deputy Africa director. “They had no way of alerting the women they serve, so many still showed up, expecting to access family planning services.”

Denied a lifeline

MSI is one of the largest providers of sexual and reproductive health care in Zimbabwe and lost 41% of its financing with the removal of USAID funds.

“Our colleagues are working around the clock to keep services running but it’s a huge blow for everyone who cares about women everywhere being able to plan their families,” says Razafinirinasoa.

“Denied this lifeline, women will no longer be able to safely space their pregnancies, pushing them further into the cycle of poverty, while those in the most desperate circumstances will be left with no option but to risk their lives by resorting to unsafe abortion.”

Kesho Congo is a Congolese NGO founded in 2015 to build healthy and resilient communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It works in health and nutrition, education and vocational training, agriculture, livestock farming and environmental protection. Additionally, it is currently engaged in a humanitarian response to support war-displaced people.

USAID funding accounted for 85% of its overall funding. As a whole, funding from the US represented 70% of development aid in the DRC.

From April 2023 to January 2025, Kesho Congo received nearly $1 million from USAID to implement a nutrition and food security project in South Kivu and Central Kasaï. After visiting its activities and auditing its financial management, USAID selected it, alongside five other Congolese NGOs and one American NGO, to implement two five-year programmes on maternal and child health and nutrition.

Essential medicines

Kesho Congo founder Dr Adolphe Nyakasane explains: “The direct consequences for our activities and the people we help are dramatic. Across the country, essential medicines are already starting to run out in several hospitals and rural health centres that were supported by USAID. The health, agriculture, education and economic development sectors will be severely affected in a context where the Congolese government is unable to take over.”

Almost 230,000 children will no longer receive the nutritional supplements they were receiving during pre-school consultations in health centres, and more than 5,000 farmers will no longer receive support.

Dr Nyakasane: “Kesho Congo is counting on its traditional partners to continue supporting the vulnerable populations of eastern Congo, especially at a time when this part of the country is experiencing a war with alarming humanitarian consequences that require strong and urgent action.”

Community health

Cees Rustenhoven is the CFO of Healthy Entrepreneurs, a Netherlands-based NGO that enables health workers to become community health entrepreneurs in seven countries in Africa, providing them with the tools and products to start their own sustainable businesses.

It was due to receive funding from USAID to scale up its activities in Tanzania, a development that would have provided credibility and led to additional financing opportunities. This strategic funding has now been suspended.

The loss is substantial, amounting to about $1 million, and comes at a time when the Dutch government has also decided to scale back its contribution to development aid.

As well as the immediate impact on individual programmes and NGOs, the removal of USAID funding means that many organisations are having to seek replacement funding from very limited sources.

In Makhanda, South Africa, Myriad Canada is working with the Eiohn Hayes Fund to bring affordable, life-changing eye care to underserved individuals — helping children see clearly in school, restoring vision to older adults, and giving those who lost jobs due to poor eyesight a second chance to thrive.

Wake-up call

“There has been a huge shake-out because of the disappearance of the USAID money. Parties who are working in the health space have to try to obtain their funding elsewhere, so there is huge competition going on, with a limited number of funders,” Rustenhoven says. “As the sources are limited, we also need to look at our own organisation, at reducing operational costs, to make sure the lack of funding won’t endanger our sustainability.”

It’s clear to him that healthcare in the communities he operates in works best when it’s organised at the most local level. People need to be able to access everyday medication in their village, without having to take time off work to travel to health centres in bigger towns and cities.

“For a lot of people in Africa, this has also been a wake-up call,” he says. “They are asking why they have become so dependent on foreign funding. We need to organise ourselves, and make sure that we get a model that will be sustainable in the long term. If you’re so dependent on funding, then if the funding stops, all the activity stops, and healthcare delivery stops too.”

Make a difference

To donate for reproductive health in Africa, click here.

To donate to child malnutrition in the DRC, click here.

To donate to eye healthcare services in South Africa, click here.