by Megan Clement

We knew that Donald Trump and his Nazi-saluting ally Elon Musk would unleash a wave of destructive chaos when Trump took power. But the scale of the devastation these two men have already wrought, not just upon the US but around the world, is mind-boggling.

At the time of writing, the Trump administration had placed almost the entirety of the staff of USAID, the country’s international development agency, on administrative leave. The new government is carrying out a plan to close the agency entirely, “feeding [it] into the woodchipper” as Musk said on X, the social media platform he bought for $44 billion and turned into a hive of far-right disinformation.

Shutting down or even cutting back at USAID will have horrific consequences for the millions of people around the world who rely on foreign aid for
their survival. Women and girls – who suffer disproportionately during natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies and whose specific needs include maternal, reproductive and sexual healthcare and protection from gender-based violence – will be some of the worst affected.

Trump has also implemented the Mexico City Policy, or global gag rule, which cuts funding from international NGOs that provide information about abortion, even in countries where it is legal. The United States was, until this month, the largest provider of aid funding for sexual and reproductive health in the world, followed by the Netherlands and the UK (France is not in the top ten).

Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has enacted the policy on taking office, and scores of organisations around the world have faced an impossible choice between continuing to talk about abortion and losing
their funding to provide often life-saving sexual and reproductive health care such as HIV treatment; or refusing to talk about abortion (itself a life-saving procedure) so they can keep providing other services. The policy is estimated to have caused 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections around the world when it was last in force between 2017 and 2021. It is hard to conceive of how many more could be caused by the dismantling of USAID.

To help understand the scale of the
crisis facing women and girls around the world, I spoke to Kehinde Ajayi, the director of the gender equality and inclusion program at the Centre for Global Development. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Megan Clement: As of the time we’re having this conversation, we have heard that the vast majority of staff members at USAIDS are going to be put on administrative leave and the intention of the new administration seems to be to dismantle the agency. Can you give a sense of the effect of disbanding this organisation or indeed just interrupting its work?

Kehinde Ajayi: USAID is the largest bilateral donor organisation in the world and is the vehicle for the US to deliver most of its funding related to development assistance and humanitarian aid. Given that, dismantling USAID or
suspending its operations – as has already happened – has huge implications for many partners and recipients of funding.

The US government commits to funding sexual and reproductive health and USAID has been a global champion for gender equality and women’s economic empowerment more broadly, funding initiatives to support improvements in the care sector – which we know is a huge factor limiting women’s ability to participate in economic activities – and funding initiatives to support women’s political representation and leadership in political spaces. There’s also been a huge amount of effort to improve data collection on issues related to gender equality and to improve evidence. Some examples of this are demographic and
health surveys, which collect crucial information on the well-being of women and girls. They’ve also worked on things like financial inclusion and digital inclusion, ensuring that women and girls have equal opportunities to access bank accounts, financial services and digital services. All of these are crucial to the well-being not just of women and girls, but also to the functioning of entire communities and societies, and this is all at risk.

Megan Clement: The world is facing major humanitarian crises right now. Are there specific services for women and girls, for example, in Sudan, Afghanistan or Gaza that will end? Will these crises be even more acute for women and girls?

Kehinde Ajayi: Women and girls are often the most vulnerable in situations of conflict and humanitarian crisis. You’ve mentioned situations affected by violent crises, but there’s also health crises emerging across the world. We have a situation right now of an Ebola outbreak and the vulnerability of women and girls is especially acute in these settings. Supporting women and girls is a crucial response to crises because of the fact that they are often the ones who are dealing with the brunt of these issues. When we think about who’s going to be the core point of rebuilding and ensuring that the
recovery goes well, it is often women and girls. Continuing to protect their well-being in the midst of these types of crises is critical. 

Photo: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. CC BY 2.0

Megan Clement: Do we know how the implementation of the global gag rule is going to interact with the broader USAID cuts?

Kehinde Ajayi: PEPFAR is one of the most prominent examples of the transformative impacts of US development assistance. It is a programme that supports the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to people [with HIV] across the world. This is something that has been affected [by the
cuts] and is interacting with the global gag rule. Having something abrupt like this is quite a shock because, for things like anti-retrovirals, which are important to take on a daily basis, having a break impacts people’s ability to maintain the progress they have made. Even temporary closures can have a long-run impact, because if contractors and service providers are not able to meet their financial needs because of a temporary cut, that may lead to them shutting down permanently. Think about an NGO or a clinic that’s providing [anti-retroviral drugs], and the suspension in funding means they close. That means that they’re also not providing gynaecological screenings, they’re also not providing blood pressure checks to pregnant women. [Added later via email:] We also know that pregnancy and economic distress are both associated with an increased risk of intimate partner
violence, so this is an especially important concern.

Megan Clement: Do we now need other countries to step up and fill the gap that’s being left by the US and if so, which ones are most likely to get involved?

Kehinde Ajayi: The US has historically provided twice as much funding for sexual and reproductive health than other actors, so there is a big potential gap. It is a challenging time globally in terms of fiscal space and the amount of resources that there are available, so it will take multiple actors to
step in. It’s not just a question of one government. USAID, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and AFD in France are bilateral donors, but there are also multilateral donors, such as development banks. There is also the philanthropic space, with funders that have historically been strong supporters of gender equality. Their role is not so much stepping in to fill the financing gap dollar-for-dollar, but in supporting technical assistance in certain situations, and providing more flexible funding. It really calls for a collective effort. What we’re seeing within the US is a strong effort to push back against what is happening right now and to potentially restore a lot of this funding.

Protesters demonstate against Donald Trump and Elon Musk in Colombus, Ohio.
Photo: Paul Becker. CC BY 2.0

Megan Clement: People are feeling quite overwhelmed by all this. They look at what this very powerful man in this very powerful country is doing and they feel helpless. What can ordinary people do to support the rights of women and girls worldwide when they’re under such threat?

Kehinde Ajayi: This [situation] is an example of the power of democracy and the importance of voting with care and understanding what the implications of a vote are. Everyone should be paying attention to the impact of elected leaders on the policies that are implemented. I think we underestimate that
sometimes and take it for granted.

A second thing is to recognise and highlight the fact that gender equality is not just about supporting one set of people versus the other and it’s not something we should only think about when we’re not concerned with other issues, but it is something that has cross-cutting effects at all times. In the midst of violent crises, in the midst of concerns about climate change, in any situation, protecting the most vulnerable is important. We can support local institutions to do that in our communities, and globally there are a lot of actors working to address this. So look for ways to invest in supporting the most vulnerable people.

And the last thing I would say is focus on continuing to do the work. Sometimes we get overwhelmed by following the news and by thinking about what it might mean. It’s devastating to see what is happening right now, but in the long run, people working to promote gender equality are used to ups and downs. Historically, the example of the global gag rule is something that has come and gone at different times and there have been gains and losses in terms of progress towards gender equality. So I think the most important thing is to think about how to continue to work in this space. Some of it will [involve] a pivot towards looking at different funding and different ways of working. But don’t get disillusioned by what’s happening right now, and continue to commune with other people who are doing this
work.

Megan Clement: I needed to hear that and I’m sure our readers need to hear it too.

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