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.
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.