Despite the agency's human resources department saying he hadn’t even been onboarded, Jeremy Lewin oversaw the destruction of USAID. It’s not clear he had the legal authority to do so.
It’s more than thousands, but also, it’s not that they terminated funding per se; it’s that they did it in an intentionally callous and disruptive way by reneging on existing commitments that NGOs all over the world were relying on, at zero notice.
NGOs typically aren’t permitted the luxury of keeping a large cash reserve aside to get through gaps in funding; donors treat it as mismanagement not to spend the donated money. As such, most of them were left with literally weeks to find alternative funding or cease operations. All USAID had to do was give 3 months’ notice for the NGOs to find other funding, and it would have been at least somewhat fine.
It takes many years and millions of dollars to build an effective NGO, and only weeks to destroy it. The wilful and deliberate damage DOGE did will echo for a decade.
I mean, USAID did some good, but it was also a tool of American imperialism that intentionally undermined local economies to make struggling nations willing to accept aid in exchange for incredibly exploitative trade and resource extraction deals that left its victims even more helpless than before. Obviously shutting it down like this has led to tragic and needless suffering, but it’s good the organization is gone and hopefully China can step in with its Belts and Roads initiative and actually help develop these countries.
Thousands of people died and continue to die as a result of terminated USAID funding.
America voted for this. America stood by while this happened.
Please world never forget this. You may forgive it, but never forget.
It’s more than thousands, but also, it’s not that they terminated funding per se; it’s that they did it in an intentionally callous and disruptive way by reneging on existing commitments that NGOs all over the world were relying on, at zero notice.
NGOs typically aren’t permitted the luxury of keeping a large cash reserve aside to get through gaps in funding; donors treat it as mismanagement not to spend the donated money. As such, most of them were left with literally weeks to find alternative funding or cease operations. All USAID had to do was give 3 months’ notice for the NGOs to find other funding, and it would have been at least somewhat fine.
It takes many years and millions of dollars to build an effective NGO, and only weeks to destroy it. The wilful and deliberate damage DOGE did will echo for a decade.
I mean, USAID did some good, but it was also a tool of American imperialism that intentionally undermined local economies to make struggling nations willing to accept aid in exchange for incredibly exploitative trade and resource extraction deals that left its victims even more helpless than before. Obviously shutting it down like this has led to tragic and needless suffering, but it’s good the organization is gone and hopefully China can step in with its Belts and Roads initiative and actually help develop these countries.
…without any sense of irony. jfc
I mean, it is verifiable fact that BRI is benign investment compared to Western debt diplomacy. Even Wikipedia agrees with that.
Yeah, all those polio vaccinations were really fucking oppressive.
Did I not say that it did some good? Two things can be true at once.