from the technical in the us, mexico border is riley made so violence towels to tear gas dropping drawings in india and to the low and starting traverse the globe to ship lights on the 3 the exports with the 1st tested on palestinian is raleigh filling model a way to separate and control on ones that populations the palestine, the bar 3 parts to adjust the funding pool 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? so 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 premie. 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, a 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 that the biggest, the entire refund. and i would what i would say that a number of people close to 20000000 people are receiving era views 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 and aligned with his america 1st 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, but 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 cortex. and the key issue with mux actions is that it's happening in this 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 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 act of congress 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 clay is the age of america. soft power, well and truly of mike level. oh to 0 for inside story. the as well that spring and i guess from washington dc, we joined by heart and lang, the vice president for programs and policy at refugees international in colchester

. and the u. k. is natasha instead of us foreign policy specialist and a professor of government at the university of essex. and, and i wrote b is alan boswell, the international crisis groups project director for the horn of africa. a very well and 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 pub, 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, i was like, 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 most is doing, in essence, is pulling the plug to all of 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 all the power and 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 you is what you have. i mean, if i get 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 are not reliable. and that actually, but 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 of 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 before stopped 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 uh, w. p. warehouses for instance. because even though w p has been a lot of the continued the videos have been so effective that they, they can. and these are places where people are starving to death, such as in sudan, i'm the 2nd one to use the 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, i think to know is that in the meantime, i don't care how much do you with 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 pitfall 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 nudging 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 you have, sir, 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, overseeing 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 stock or orders. 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 won't be able to kick in before the congress will take him to exercise in 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 unplanned 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 he has met in 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 like use 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 of torturing machines. and so they're the often a target, whether it be done or other n g o is, which is why we saw for is a n t n g o laws that were passed by torturing machines. 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 and 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 this 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 of 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 fact 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 national jersey, united nations. we're already hearing from a number of them that 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 stability, but also to provide a sense of organizations of pro, i presume democracy 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 to survive, hopefully. but it's going to do very significant damage to a strategic level to civil society, to sort of play the role that we always depend on sales site and place. but alan, do you think 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 id 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, and, you know, a lot of other countries, i think of stop, you know, also you the supports as uh, as unwelcome as well. so you can see a truck and ministrations very transactional. you know, a lot of, you know,

as 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 which wants to take a very transactional approach. wants to do deals. uh, you know, doesn't have a great democracy record at home to, to say the least. um, 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. the tasha alan 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 aid is

distribution. 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. it'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 sell the scott because the u. s. was the biggest owner, even though the u. s. was far below what the expectations were in terms of the folks at the federal budget where 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 that 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 had 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 guards. and sylvia 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 national so 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 an absence the ministration had 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 go 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 and center 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, huge 100 bill at the 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 is very direct, 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 a. 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 them, and the whole team here, bye for now the,

the february on as jesse 3 years on from the outbreak of the war and you cream out of view, it explores the human costs and asks 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 a vote of no confidence in germany's transfer people head to the polls with the center right christian democratic union party is expected to take power rushes shut on africa examines of russia's growing influence in the region through the prison. the central african republic, you'll see a whole the african institutions as a chooses leaders, february on jersey, on counting the cost, what's behind donald trump's terrorist, and could they trigger a global trade war? india is facing on its middle class to revive it's slowing economy,

but we'll look campbell pay off. plus has the china taken the lead in the global race to a i, terms of the cost on i will just a rough for rosa to use human appeal has been making the most of you'll see our team successfully deliver your charity to those who need it. most across the mostly mild, we are feeding, building, caring, tooling, planting, fuel refined, teaching and helping transform lives. this is messy inaction. this is human appeal, the ceiling, the fact the is very systematic and deliberate destruction of causes we will to infrastructure has left more than 2000000 people in a state of commerce. and just from asking questions, what do you think will be the last thing? impacts on journal is reporting from the action when firefighters did arrive. there wasn't sufficient with an in depth coverage. it's

a gathering of indigenous people. wisdom teeth this out as it was, teens on the ground. when you closer to the heart of the story, the geologist or with me is the whole robert and the reminder of all top new stories. the names of 3 is very tempted. so be exchange full palestinian prisoners on site today have not been released by him. us at least your all be or less a and a had been i me all due to be 100 over as part of the deal. this will be the 5th, the release of his right. the captive since the see saw deal was reached and went to israel will release 183 palestinian prisoners on site today. $111.00 of those prisoners were detained in gauze as, as the will began in october 22.