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february on as jersey to 3 years on from the outbreak of the war and you cream out of view. it explores the human cost analysis, whether politics or the battlefield will determine its outcomes for cause new direction looks at the challenges facing nations across the continent as they move away from dependency. aiming to re define their futures after of both of no confidence in germany's transfer people head to the polls with the sensor, right christian democratic union parties, expected to take power. brussels shut on africa, examines of russia's growing influence in the region through the prison. the central african republic, ethiopia hold the african mission as a chooses leaders. february on a dizzy it's funding cold and it's stuff sent home. the world's largest international humanitarian. donna usa id is under assault, that the trump administration doesn't restore the flow of age who will fill the void. and what does it mean for the locals us central is. this is inside story,

the hello and welcome to the program. i'm elizabeth put on him. president donald trump's administration is dismantling the us agency for international development. oh usa id for decades. it's been the world's probably yeah. humanitarian agency distribution, live saving medications combating the spread of disease and providing disaster relief and conflict phones. thousands of employees have been placed on leave and aid recipients, and more than a 150 countries have been left in limbo, spearheading federal budget costs as building it in on mosque and has department of government efficiency. while it may represent an instant saving on the books,

will they be in on seen costs to american influence, and called the quotes end up blocking yet another of trump's endeavors will get to those questions at the moment. but 1st, this report by my collateral of the mold. in 60 years, the united states agency for international development has been at the full front of every global humanitarian initiative food parcels, medication h, i. v. aids testing kits, civil service capacity building and developing nations. us a id was behind it all, us 8 as being the biggest, the entire refund. and i would what i would say that a number of people close to 20000000 people are receiving error ivy's at the treatment of testing services from the funds that suicide has been providing to us . but that's all stopped at least for now. us president donald trump sees the

aid agencies 2023 budget to $40000000000.00 as a waste of money to work and not aligned with these america. first agenda. i love the concept, but they turn out to be a radical left load. it takes us a id, was established by john f. kennedy. in 1961, he signed an executive order which created it as an independent agency. but it's coming to the cross. hes a billionaire loan masks department of government efficiency, a task force best via one of trump's executive orders. us a i d. 's website has been taken down and then noticed placing roughly 10010 employees on administrative leave is all that remains. as the announcement met with anger on the streets of washington, dc and promises of co tax and the key issue with muskets actions is that it's

happening in the zone that we could best describe as a gray, legal zone, or perhaps more accurately described as a zone of illegality. so he is effectively shutting down an american government agency that requires an act of congress. it's a question that keeps cropping up with an act of congress to do away with us, say id or do you believe you have? i don't know the way of not when it comes to fraud. if this for are these people are lunatics and it would, if it comes to fraud, you wouldn't have an active talk from once america to project strength at home and abroad. he's costing aside anything he sees is impacting his administration's bottom line. it's a move, critics say the k is the age of america. soft power,

well and truly of mike level. oh to 0 for inside story. the. when that spring and i guess from washington dc, we joined by heart and leg the vice president for programs and policy at refugees international and colchester. and the u. k is natasha instead of us foreign policy specialist and a professor of government at the university of essex. and the nairobi is alan boswell, the international crisis groups project director for the horn of africa, a very warm welcome to all of you. natasha. i'll start with you in colchester. the us says that every dollar it spends has to be justified with the answer to the questions. does that make america safer? most stronger and more prosperous. is the freezing of us a id in line with these goals? no, not at all. i mean, this is such a significant shift in us military policy,

and it is not making american safer, but it's definitely not making many people who are vulnerable safer. because usa, i was, was instrumental in providing like saving dark scenes. i mean, all the work. but if we just even look at the area of global health for usa to work in partnership with organizations like how far to, to help prevent the spread of aids saving somewhere around 26000000 lines or work to support the larry vaccine or to, to find malaria, which kills 450000 children under 5 and your work, i'm not, has helped save some 7000000 lines or in finding tv, which kills over a 1000000 people still and their work. and that has, has save some 79000000 people. so in addition to all the work that they do in the health care field, they are instrumental and disaster relief in providing food aid and also in

support of democracy. yeah, so, so this is really catastrophic on a number of funds. hudden, it's aiesha talks about how devastating this is for vulnerable communities, especially how does it look for the wells, which is 9 in on mosque to be unplugging, a lifeline to the world's poorest people. hey, also is there a way which america has shown up in the rest of the world? and in many of these communities that are facing humanitarian crisis that are smart in poverty, a id and it's programming have been that face. and what the, all i must have doing, in essence, is pulling the plot of all that. and so it's not hard to see how this narrative is going to play in countries in communities around the world because it's already government, some steam. and the fact that you had sort of russia and china welcome, this move, tells you a lot about what it's doing to us on power,

on the perception of the united states, a trip march. i mean it's as though we have gone into hospitals, and for unplugged, the translators, people who were counting on their h, i v meds next day show and the door's locked. the ripple effect to this truck is what you have. i mean, if i give women from afghanistan, you know, we're on the wrong natal. i'm on inside of the chemist on orient. practiced on who's safe houses. i've had to shutter their doors. so the level at which this is going to ripple out across communities and countries amongst the world for us that, that even people who are watching this are allies and partners, are we reliable as a country to show up both when they need it for humanitarian assistance or support them and depression for example, like the message is going to be clear that we're not reliable. and that actually, but on accountable billionaire and oligarch has the ability to unplug, what has been a global lifeline, an insurance policy. and elena africa is probably the region that will be most

impacted by the freezing of this aid. what has been the full out? the already that you can tell is, you know, from soup kitchens where you are in nairobi to the 10s of millions. and so don, who need food aid a yeah, it's a total made him and there's 2. i'd say main areas that have people especially worried, one of which is the amount of 2 data that are coming from the united states. and by far the largest donor to w p um and 2 other implementing partners i'm, although that technically from data has a life saving emergency to data has a technical waiver in practice. so many people have been laid off or putting on the but that essentially uh, and many of the indians themselves have actually had to fire people or stop the work that the result has been. no one even knows what's being delivered anymore. um, i heard stories of, i was actually returning food to i w. p. warehouses for instance. because even

though w p has been a lot of the continued the, the engineers have been so effective that they, they can't. and these are places where people are starving to death, such as in sudan, i'm the 2nd one that use that public health support each i the malaria, tuberculosis of the us was by far the biggest uh, contributor there. and a lot of those pros, programs are essentially on hold again, they might pick off, but i think the, the underlying thing to know is that in the meantime, i don't care how much do you as will eventually come back in and put somebody in, get some of these programs or anything, but in the meantime, definitely africans will die. and natasha as elena saying that has been so much confusion. i mean, you mentioned pet file which supports millions of people who need a child support for h i v. and even, you know, the waiver about that is unclear absolute confusion. but do you think that this is something that this us administration will actually be able to do whether was

merging usa id with the state department or trying to scale it back to the level that it is? i mean, usually idea is not supposed to be part of the state department supposed to be independent and it received congressional approval and funding for this. so it doesn't really work when it's part of the state department, particularly the state department left by marco rubio, who has really been promoting this. trump, you know, trump's agenda that everybody that works for the trauma government administration has to be in line with trump's ideological goals. and that's not really the purpose of monitoring agency organization that is trying to say why it's and they're trying to find people who are dis, loyal and create a much meaner organization that will only have really lacking people without you know, the type of experience i know the are keeping some people there, but i mean, the, the way that they got in the workforce is just incredible. you only have some 12

people working in africa now some 8 working in latin america in the caribbean. 21 people working for the entire middle east in asia. i mean, it's very difficult for an organization to function when it has been gathered so completely as hot and what kind of challenges do you expect to this from the us congress itself. a tribute, let me just go back to the question, which just as though it was a super important like part of what you're saying now, the numbers that were things around most of the us, the id workforce laid off or for load. so we're getting a point worth about 2, i think we 290 officers are supposed be transferred from usaa the over to the state department. but if you say that usa, the roughly has a budget of say, $40000000000.00 in a given year. and then site 10 to 14000 thing on account of employees working there over saying that if you're just transferring 300 people over to the state department to oversee ongoing a programs, there have the capacity to oversee

a fraction of that for team building. and so we're talking about using our, the total humanitarian and developing a going down to a couple of $1000000000.00. if we're lucky in the interim. what's also happening here is, while we're waiting for congress and the course to really kick in, to exercise our oversight. which of having is the destruction of the agency through the cutting of contracts, through the fire and of employees, and following through the software orders to the entire eco system munoz and support the system. so the goal here i think, is to push humpty dumpty off the wall having been shipped and crash on the ground, the shutter, nobody pieces before. congress can step in and act. i think the time that we're looking here for is that there's a reconciliation process. the budget process is going to check in the united states to try to keep the lights on for the government across the system by march 14th. the hope is that us or you will be able to kick in before the congress will take him to exercise its oversight and his action constitutional authority here. because

to be honest, right, in the midst of the constitutional crisis, the fire there were world for just man has gone in and unplugged a system with some dubious authority to do so. this is the moment the congress needs to step up an exercise. it's a mandate for a, an agency that it has many and existence there. of course you this cannot happen at the time. yeah. at allen while we wait for that to happen and see if that happens. in the meantime, countries like china, a ready filling the void and aid programs in the pacific. how much of an opportunity is this full countries like china to fill the gap left by us a id? it's an interesting question because i actually think the type of programs us a id did at large is something that many uh, well actually not come back and do i think us aid. in hindsight, it's historically, i don't need to talk about it in the, in the past tense already, but i think, i think it will probably, this will look like something like a closing chapter on

a type of a did not. it was an a that was a viewed as being able to purposely a political that was distributed intentionally on most so it didn't. there wasn't political leverage tied to it. um, the type of either that will be coming in from russia or china for instance. we'll, you know, come with strings attached and they may very well be that a future a coming from the united states might have a lot more strings attached to, i think. and you know, it goes without saying that there was obviously a lot of, of the load in the, in the system. there was a lot of data that actually the countries themselves, the leaders themselves, even sometimes the people themselves didn't even like or want to i think there are kind of 2 categories. there's a very much saving aid which, which is highly disruptive to cut off and then like, do you think there will be a lot of programs where. busy there won't be many. busy for miss it, or even notice that they're gone except for who they employed and a lot of that will never be picked up by someone else. latasha. that's a really interesting point that alan is making that you know, not all of the 8,

of course, the bulk of it, as humanitarian, but no, not all of it is humanitarian. the really interesting thing is that while they're humanitarian sector, as reasoning from this announcement, there are some sort of terry in regimes including russia and china. but you know, everywhere from, i'll salvador about a roof, nicaragua, venice way that old sharing on the dismantling of us aid. can you tell us why as they are because you organizations are us the id that provide democracy support that supports civil society that supports human rights and the rule of law. these types of programs are, you know, they, they undermine a sore turing machines. and so they're the often a target, whether it be done or other n g o z, which is why we saw for is a n t n g o laws that were passed by tor attorney reviews. they really want these

types of organizations to, to be dismantled because it poses a threat to their rule. and we have felt that they can be effected in supporting sort of society. and this is one of the reasons why and bottom recruit lives. so, so threatened by what, when there had been protests after fraudulent elections. and because organizations like this, mobilize these groups and helps read best practices about pushing for accountability and transparency. so of course they're rejoicing, so it's not just stop, but also in there is a void in, in, in saw power and in the china, hispanics in the last 12 years of over a trillion dollars in promoting, you know, the above road initiative and other forms of soft power and no be avoid there with, with a loss of what looks like the loss of us a id. and it's not going to be supporting the human rights space,

democracy based projects. and we do see that the level of democracy globally is affected by headphones. like the us and, and the quality of democracy in the us, of course. but the, the role that they play in supporting democracy around the world and how them, what impact do you see that having on, you know, everything from civil society organizations to n g o's or so let's take a minute or 2 groups are there like international and yeah, those who have footprints in a couple of countries in certain regions to a global presence, not the so much that of the united nations, for the international and yours. what we're seeing and contractor for use id is the global, saw more orders as have like a catastrophic effect, right? we're seeing layoffs of 40 percent to 90 percent and stuff. and this is a, once you've actually laid the stuff off. so rebuilding that if my were to come back

online is going to take a long time, it's gonna take effort. and so you really are seeing a cascade effect across the eco system. implementing partners at the an international g o level to provide everything from some development assistance to the support for uh for a public health programs to the emergency humanitarian assistance that's supposed to have some waivers, but which in effect is not function of those. that of that system is collapsing globally at the civil society level inside of the countries be like this whole site organizations, local organizations really are sort of the front line of the effort, right? these, the folks are on the front line and ukraine and elsewhere, really providing assistance to communities in need and getting that money in support from the international jersey, united nations. we're already hearing from a number of them and they're having to shut down their program. right. and these organizations are critical not just for actually meeting needs, but they are the bedrock of civil society and something that is very deeply in the us street interest to see civil society strengthening inside of just inside of

countries. because a strong civil society is good for us and all that, but also to provide us that sort of organizations a problem. i appreciate the opportunity into corruption, human rights issues. and this is a very real danger that the kind of external support upon which many of the sole society organizations belie is crumbling very quickly. and there will find ways to continue survive hopefully. but it's going to do very significant damage to a strategic level to so, so i need to sort play the role that we always depend on sales site and place. but alan, do use thing that this u. s. administration is the whole interested in building up strong civil societies and other countries because as donald trump in, in on mosque have repeatedly send us an idea of what the usa idea is doing is not aligned with the administration's goals on. yeah, i took a lot of the civil society uh, you know, uh, i quoted the pro democracy uh grands from usa to have had very strong bipartisan

support for very uh for a long time. but it's clear that that support really doesn't come from the trump administration. and you know, a lot of other countries i think of stop, you know, also you the supports as, as unwelcome as well. so you can see a truck and ministrations very transactional. you know, a lot of, you know, people ask a lot of african leaders don't really appreciate that. the us basically findings. a lot of what we call civil society is what they see as political activists. you know, and then this is a, this can be a drag sometimes on, on the other relation. so you can see that terms of ministration. uh, which wants to take a very transactional products, wants to do deals. um, uh, you know, doesn't have a great democracy record at home to, to say the least. you can see why that was sort of programs are not something that will, you know, that my kids don't get restarted and we'll see how much appetite there is for actually be starting after a jump administration. and whether it is bipartisan consensus that had been there in the us system is now just gone to the tasha island was talking earlier about how

china would not be interested or china doesn't have the appetite to cover all the kinds of programs that the u. s. a id, funding gap will leave, it's a huge gap, but given that, you know, they work on things that will affect countries beyond the board, as with the aide is distribution and things like preventing organized crime, terrorism conflicts, and the impact that that will have on human security, are they any of the countries that we can expect? maybe you are p and nations, for example, to try and fill some of this gap. that's a good question. i mean, uh, traditionally the scandinavian countries in particular have big have been big donors. and of course, they've donated quite a bit in terms of a percentage of, of g p, a. and they're often above the point 7 percent, that the countries are supposed to spend on foreign aid. but it's hard to fill

this gap because the u. s. was the biggest donor, even though the u. s. was far below what the expectations were in terms of the folks at the federal budget were it's under one percent or it's for need was 2.2 percent or something along those lines. it's hard for all the smaller countries to, to meet, you know, all the demands, all the competitor and crises that are taking place around the world. though i think you're going to see you're trying to, to step up. but you have to also understand at the same time, you're is facing huge costs with the ongoing war in ukraine. and so there are so many fires to put out at the same time that this, this loss of, of the us in terms of the, the role of a major for an a doctor is really going to have monumental effects on security. yeah. and human secure, we're seeing that it's already having around the world hot. and i was reading that

the, you know, democratic pop, pop, pull policy, politicians have been talking about how it could jeopardize us national security. they cited prison gods, and syria who are in charge of securing ice will fly. so this temporarily walked off the job when the us funding was was cash off for example. or yeah, there are any number of examples of where the sort of nationals like the touch points between what you will see and he does. and you, especially security, are quite clear. the example of the caps in ne syria where it has since the administration has not thought through or recognize that if you pull the plugs on, he's not on this is like assistance. you're going to pull the applauded on one of the contractors in northeastern. and that was providing the security for the accounts where tens of thousands of ices, families, and products and fighters were still living under the guard of, of the certain partners others are in partners in the area. and this is have

a huge like ripple effect across the system and people gain some visibility on it. but there are lots of others examples of this or other places where the touch points between national security and developing humanitarian assistance or claire and one thing just to keep in mind, let's come back to a ball in the night and in 2014, 15 if that crisis right, the ball of crisis lead to in western west africa led to a huge mobilization on the part of the united states and others to contain it. and that's because when the president obama saw the projections of what could happen to spread the millions of people who could be killed. and the possibility of that is he's getting into the united states and doing very serious damage. a full court press effort was put into place involving civilian actors, use military and support, etc. to try to help him contain that. if and this is your taking the tools from that tool. okay. and removing them, you are a critic, shoot for bill at united states, the masses, freight of these kind of diseases. as we've seen under co, if you don't have those tools in the tool kit,

very direct the national security implications. and humans to turn in quotations. not just abroad, but in the united states, an allen, even if the cuts, the usaa idea going to be successfully challenged. and the quote says, how much damage do you think this has already done? not just in terms of all of the people that a has been cut off from thought to him now, cuz reputation as a reliable partner. a sure, well, i don't think you it is even as a reliable partner. um, uh, that is not only because of the way usa was was, you know, put through the, the winter for uh, as it was said, um, when you know the trouble administration coming in for a 2nd term is seen by most of the countries in the world. as a signal that there is no continuity from the us and many of these major issues. he's obviously a huge disruptor. and this is obviously a case in point. and there's

a huge amount of uncertainty about what to expect from the us, from here on, on almost every single and almost every single file. so i think this is another example of it. um, there's already been, you know, in the african side, you know, which is why i'm, there's already been a lot of calls actually for leaders or former leaders saying, hey, it's now time for us to stop relying on this for an aide and realize that we can't be dependent and it's time. busy you know, feel our own public health budgets and things like that. so i think it is also we. busy different flexion for countries to say they can't rely on us for necessarily anyone else moving ahead, but for sure this is just, uh, you know, this is just further convinced everyone that if they thought they could rely on the us moving ahead so that they can do it every 4 years to bring something entirely different us. all right, that is our discussion for today. thank you. so all of i guess todd and lying in washington dc. natasha instead and colchester and alan boswell in nairobi. and thank you to for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website out a 0 dot com. that's a further discussion to go to

a facebook page that's facebook dot com, forward slash a inside story. you can also join the conversation on x. i handle this at a inside story from me, elizabeth put on the and the whole team here, bye for now. the examining the headline. assessing the discussion, exploring abundance of wells. clos programming. designed to inform, motivates, ending by on algae 0. shake model was for translation and international understanding is inviting nominations for its 11th edition starting january the fast and ending march the 31st 2025 for more information. please visit the awards official website

at w w. w dot h t a dot q a the the carry johnston. this is in use a lot from the coming up the next 60 minutes. mass releases the names of the 3 is really captive to be freed on saturday. the return for 183 kind of thing and presence of the last months, the spot for hospital happen to be the largest public health facility that as you can see now it's all the pile of rocks and stones due to massive.