Stop work

Dear Debriefers,

President Trump's freeze on foreign aid has caused an earthquake in international development and humanitarian efforts.

This irresponsible and callous move has brought life-saving work to an abrupt halt, along with essential services for the world's most vulnerable populations.

People with disabilities are impacted both as general beneficiaries of these programmes and also recipients of aid targeted directly towards them. Organisations responsible for service provision or advocacy for disabled people have been sent reeling, with many having to stop work and send staff home.

Specialists see this as having “dreadful long term consequences” and even causing “multigenerational harm” to persons with disabilities and their families.

This article contains exclusive reporting on how disabled people and efforts for disability rights are impacted, at the same time as contextualising these in terms of progress of the last years, reflecting on the harsh way power has been exposed, and looking forward.

It is with sadness I share the passing of Tan Kuan Aw. Kuan Aw was an activist and artist from Penang, Malaysia, and for two years illustrated Disability Debrief. He passed last week, aged 72. I hope you'll join me in revisiting his work.

Disability Debrief does this reporting thanks to support from its readers. You can make a one-off or recurring contribution.

Worldwide impact of “stop work” order

Trump has started his new Presidential term acting as if he were King. The US government is in disarray and indeed an attempt to pause federal funding as whole had to be stopped by the courts.

But foreign aid was frozen separately, and this freeze is still in place. Trump came into office declaring a 90-day “pause” in foreign development assistance. The State Department says that:

“We are rooting out waste. We are blocking woke programs. And we are exposing activities that run contrary to our national interests.”

The reckless order to “stop work” immediately suspended programmes across the world. While there has been a promise of waivers to continue life-saving aid this has only been minimally implemented. The impact is being felt at every level of the international system. From big United Nations agencies to tiny grassroots organisations it has sent everyone scrambling.

In 2023, US economic foreign assistance was worth $60 billion. Of this, $42.5 billion was managed by USAID, $10.8 billion by the Department of State, and the rest by other agencies. 130 countries around the world received this aid, with $17 billion (28%) going to Ukraine.

The effects of suddenly stopping such a huge portfolio were felt across the world, from soup-kitchens in Sudan, antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDs in African countries, to security for a camp holding ISIS members in Syria. As one organisation providing health services put it, the result is that “people will die”.

Undermining decades of progress on disability rights

Persons with disabilities and organisations working on disability rights and services are among those facing devastating impacts.

One international NGO (Non-Government Organisation) told me that the freeze risks “undermining decades of progress in advancing the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities worldwide”:

“International funding has been a lifeline for critical programs—ranging from accessible education and healthcare to employment opportunities and advocacy efforts. A disruption in this support could disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, leaving millions without the resources they need to thrive.”

Essential services stopped and futures uncertain

An example of how this disruption affects vulnerable communities and disabled people in particular comes from the Cox's Bazaar camps for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. A source familiar with support in these camps tells me that services for all refugees have been impacted. And, further, programmes providing essential supports to thousands of severely disabled refugees were suspended, with staff providing them put on leave.

Another example of how the freeze impacts people's futures comes from Egypt. Hundreds of students receiving USAID scholarships were sent into limbo as the scholarships were paused.

One of them was a student with disability who told Disability Debrief that the disruption left them feeling trapped. Their current campus is accessible for them, and they can't continue without the scholarship:

“It's either I go through with my education [with the USAID scholarship], or I stop my university education altogether.”

Indeed, US support for higher education in Egypt was also trying to open up broader access at other universities, through developing disability centres at public universities.

Weakening the voice of persons with disabilities

Organisations working on disability programming and advocacy have been impacted directly. At the very least US-supported initiatives have been “suspended” in the sense of the 90-day pause. But others have also received direct orders to terminate agreements as part of a wider attack on DEI initiatives.

Some are international organisations or NGOs providing services, but there are also disability-led organisations at every level from the grassroots to international coalitions.

As an example from Central Asia, one leader of an organisation of persons with disabilities told me about how this had impacted their work:

“The sudden halt in funding has created significant challenges, limiting our ability to carry out planned activities and putting at risk essential initiatives aimed at improving accessibility, legal protection, and social inclusion for persons with disabilities.”

Indeed, they point to how the loss or reduction in external support will not only “slow progress” but also “weaken the voices of persons with disabilities in policy discussions”. They had been counting on US support to share their expertise at the upcoming Global Disability Summit and say that lack of funding will prevent them, and other organisations from Central Asia, from participating.

Existential challenges for disability organisations

Being ordered to make no further expenses doesn't just stop an organisation's activities. Organisations of every size are having to let staff go, and get out of obligations to contractors, landlords or vendors. Part of the impact is that the US government might not even pay for work done, where expenses have already been incurred.

One organisation affected in an existential way by this Inclusive Development Partners (IDP). Even though it is a small US business it could, through the eco-system of US foreign-assistance, intervene in 22 countries to improve the education of children with disabilities. They supported education programs to reduce barriers for persons with disabilities.

But now IDP is fighting for its very survival, turning to crowdfunding to defer bankruptcy and be able to pay its staff for work done before the freeze – many of them people with disabilities. Its Executive Director, Anne Hayes, tells me:

“We were doing so well – making progress on getting kids with disabilities into schools for the first time, getting teachers trained, improving policies, and we were seeing the results. All of it's been stopped.”

Dreadful long-term consequences

In Europe and neighbouring regions, there are organisations of persons with disabilities affected by suspension or termination of US aid. Catherine Naughton, Director of European Disability Forum (EDF), told me:

“In many of these countries organisations of persons with disabilities are working under already difficult circumstances, with limited resources and limited civic space. I understand the cuts are high in financial value and in their impact. It seems that services to persons with disabilities and their families will be cut, organisations who provide support will have to close programmes, qualified staff will lose their jobs. Not many donors invest in the greater European region, and these USAID cuts are set to have dreadful long term consequences.”

Multigenerational harm

A source familiar with USAID programmes on disability described these consequences as causing “multigenerational harm” for persons with disabilities and their families:

“Our programs are intended to offer support to persons with disabilities across the life course, but we know in each case the positive impacts extend beyond individual participants.

For example, the disabled learner who can now go to school... that makes it easier for them to be on the path to future employment, and for their family members to be freed up to pursue employment now.

The persons with disabilities we support with employment training, skills development etc – many have told us how their improved situation means they can now reliably feed and clothe their children and send them to school everyday.

When we pull the plug on all of that, and with no notice, those direct participants and their families are being actively hurt.”

The leading but limited US role

The range of these effects shows how involved the US was in international cooperation and promoting disability rights. But this was a complicated position, and perhaps like other social issues, the American Empire was both leading and limiting social change.

It is important not to understate the huge contribution made to disability rights through the disability movement and subsequent legislation in the US, which is a vital international reference. Through foreign assistance, USAID, the State Department and other agencies have for decades played a vital role through support, advocacy, technical expertise, international exchanges and high-level visits.

But on the other hand, the US has become a stark outsider internationally as one of a tiny number of countries that have failed to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a Convention it was influential in shaping.

And while the US's role as an aid donor in international disability work was important it was also limited. In 2024 there was an allocation of $20 million to disability programmes and $10 million for assistive technology, both minuscule for the size of USAID as a whole.

With that said, I understand that much more programming targeted disabled people as beneficiaries outside of that specific allocation. Indeed, billions of dollars of US foreign assistance mentions persons with disabilities as a target group.

A growing momentum in US aid and diplomacy

Over the past years the US, like other countries, was increasingly recognising disability as an important subject in aid and diplomacy.

The State Department had issued guidance for integrating disability inclusion across foreign policy. And USAID itself had established a new disability policy. (Both of those links go to archived versions, as the originals have been taken offline by the new administration.)

Indeed, disability rights is an area that allows for connections with countries where that isn't always possible on other issues. Sara Minkara, who was Special Advisor on International Disability Rights to the previous administration told me about how it made possible, for example, dialogue in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As she told me, “disability is a powerful diplomatic tool”.

Another source familiar with US aid told me about a growing momentum:

“We were getting a lot of traction on inclusion of persons with disabilities, finally being able to see programmes happen. But will disability now going to be a scary thing that people run from, as a 'DEI' initiative?”

Attack on DEI and repositioning disability

An important part of the Trump Presidency has been an attack on DEI initiatives at home and abroad. Disability comes in and out of focus on the DEI backlash as it did in the DEI initiatives themselves.

Some of the backlash explicitly adds “Accessibility” to target “DEIA” as a whole. And some of Trump's most grotesque comments are disability-related, such as blaming hiring of disabled people for the recent plane crash near Reagan National Airport. Furthermore, stopping DEIA in government has, for example, impacted staff's access to sign-language interpreting. As other government agencies did, USAID ordered its staff to terminate DEIA activities.

This has already sent those working on disability scrambling to reposition the work. Rather than saying “inclusion” we can talk about “reducing barriers”. Carefully defining DEI to be separate, arguments being developed include positioning disability as bipartisan, and efforts to reduce barriers as promoting self-reliance, reducing migration and enhancing US leadership.

Many of those arguments are distasteful even to the people making them. But this is related to one of the founding tensions of international aid: how to balance the interests of both beneficiaries and donors.

Exposure of power dynamics and dependence

The sudden stop in US aid has led to a harsh exposure of power dynamics. The reason most of my sources are not named in this piece is because they have been silenced by contractual obligations, the hope support might be resumed, and indeed a wider culture of fear rapidly stemming out from Trump's leadership.

In terms of its work on disability US foreign assistance is susceptible to criticisms faced by funders more widely. For example, Karen Saba, a person with disability who formerly worked at USAID, critiqued the agency and State Department for not hiring other persons with disabilities. And while reporting I heard criticism of USAID funds on disability going to intermediary organisations, as is the general pattern.

More widely, the aid sector is questioning the dominant role of the US, dependency on it along with other paradoxes of global development. This poses questions for international disability rights work, which has been explicitly and implicitly dependent on American Empire. For example, Judy Heumann is our hero (mine too), but at an international level we don't often reflect on her roles in centres of power of the World Bank or US State Department.

Indeed, one source affected by current events at USAID reflected on the relationship with power:

“We as disabled people generally depend on the ideological preferences of the [powerful] few to be able to do the work we need to do to further ourselves. And how easy it was for them to just say ‘actually you know what? Nope. We're gonna stop this now.’”

Aid infrastructure sabotaged

And it is indeed a powerful few who have smashed through decades of experience, partnerships and expertise in chains that had been built-up to stretch the entire globe. It is a betrayal of promises made to the most vulnerable people on the planet.

Even if aid funding resumes, there has been irreparable damage to the infrastructure of aid. In what appears to to be an illegal attempt to close USAID, staff and contractors have been put on leave or fired, essential systems broken (including the whole website being taken offline). Agency staff are literally locked out of their offices and digital systems needed to work, and those overseas are being called home.

One source at the agency compared it to a ship sinking from the damage done to it. Or, in the words of the general of this attack, Elon Musk, he fed “USAID into the wood chipper”.

Many Debrief readers and friends are among those whose projects and livelihoods have been derailed by this. Indeed, USAID is one of the organisations that subscribes to the Debrief at £100/month. It's set to renew in September, by when I can only assume I should send the invoice to Generalissimo Musk himself.

The future of international efforts on disability

International work on disability is by no means limited to one funder. But even before this US aid freeze, disability work had lost financing as long-term funders stepped back and other countries also reduced overseas aid.

Many that I spoke to are worried that disability funding might further lose out as other donors need to cover gaps in other sectors resulting from US withdrawal. There is a widespread impression that Chinese influence will increase globally, and the disability-related issue is some concerned this might refresh calls for a “World Disability Organisation”. I think the assumption is that this will focus more on service provision than rights and advocacy.

Funding for international disability rights is in a precarious situation, and urgently needed to keep momentum of the progress achieved. Activist and organiser Alberto Vásquez Encalada said it most directly:

“To our remaining donors: don’t play it safe. Fund like it actually matters. To our communities: we were never meant to fight comfortably.”

Weathering the storm

One of the organisations hard-hit by the aid freeze is Disability and Development Partners, a small British charity that directly supports organisations led by disabled people. I will leave the last word to its director, Adam Berry, who draws hope from its mission and grassroots partners:

“The humanity, solidarity and love that goes into this work is an advantage, providing some extra flexibility and creativity to weather storms like this. If anything can, I hope this will help us to get through.”

I hope so too.

Peter

Further resources

Disability Debrief will continue to cover the aid freeze from a disability lens, so if you're not already subscribed to the weekly newsletter then sign-up.

For resources to follow the latest news on the US aid freeze, see:

• Tom's Aid&Dev Dispatches is going into detail on the changes at USAID.
• 90 Day Suspension Order Resources from ICVA, a global network of humanitarian organisations.
• USAID Stop-Work tracking overall data on impact.

Outro

Further reading. For more about international aid and the disability movement, see unequal partnership. And for more on my own experiences of international aid, see prayer to failure.

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Acknowledgements

Marianne Dhenin contributed reporting from Egypt.

Thanks to Kinanty Andini for the amazing illustration on short notice, and to Celestine Fraser for revising a draft.

A piece like this isn't possible without connections, networks, and trust. Thanks to all for introductions, insights, and sharing many off-the-record tips. I am grateful to everyone I quote, and everyone who I spoke with.

Disability Debrief is supported by the individuals and organisations that read it.