The State Department says the freeze was the only way to evaluate aid programs and defended the pause.
The US Agency for International Development has suspended all funding for programs in Pakistan, including boosting the country's agricultural productivity. This decision may impact basic health, agriculture, disaster prevention, energy, business services and conflict resolution in the country.
"All of a sudden, you real instability and violence rising, as well as, obviously, former ISIS on the street," said Susan Reichle, a retired USAID Foreign Service officer.froze all foreign assistance provided by the United States, by far the world's biggest aid donor, on his first day back in office, calling for a review to ensure it abided by his "America First" foreign policy.
It felt "like an earthquake across the aid sector, with life-saving programmes in ruins", one veteran international aid worker told the BBC. Then-President Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003. It now employs more than 250,000 doctors, nurses and other staff across 55 countries distributing anti-viral medication and doing critical preventative work. It is credited with saving millions of lives and suppressing the spread of HIV and Aids.
"What that led to was in the last few days basically nothing being delivered within the camps," he said. "There was no camp administration, very little security, food wasn't delivered." "It was immediate and my immediate reaction was, this is catastrophic," he said of the effects of the freeze. The new State Department guidance also said: "This waiver does not apply to activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences, administrative costs… gender or DEI ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance."Back in Washington, USAID headquarters have been roiled by the aid freeze.
The world of US foreign assistance had been upended in a matter of days, said Dr Joia Mukherjee, an infectious diseases doctor from Harvard Medical School and the charity Partners In Health who helped advise on the creation of Pepfar.
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