U.S. unveils new plan for humanitarian aid after pausing contributions earlier this year

Nick Schifrin:

This week, the U.S. pledged $2 billion in humanitarian aid to the United Nations as part of a deal that will also overhaul how the U.S. funds foreign aid work going forward.

The move comes after the U.S. paused nearly all of its contributions earlier this year, leaving the U.N. and other aid organizations scrambling.

William Brangham breaks it down -- William.

William Brangham:

That's right, Nick.

That $2 billion is just a fraction of the $8 billion to $10 billion the U.S. has provided to support global humanitarian work in recent years, but it would still represent the largest commitment of any single country in the world.

Yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the news, saying it would -- quote -- "increase our ability to save lives, deliver to the most vulnerable, and reduce human suffering."

So, to help us understand the significance of this new pledge, we are joined by Jeremy Konyndyk. He's president of Refugees International and a former senior USAID official in both the Biden and Obama administrations.

Jeremy, welcome back to the "News Hour."

So, the U.S. pledges $2 billion and also says all of that money must now be funneled through one U.N. organization, the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. What do you make of that amount and of that new funding structure?

Jeremy Konyndyk, President, Refugees International:

So I think there are two different stories to those two questions.

With the new funding structure, I think there are arguments, good arguments to say that that could, if it's done right, be a pretty efficient way to deliver aid and arguably more efficient than some of the traditional ways of funneling it through this whole landscape of individual U.N. agencies.

However, that really pales in comparison to what looks like a massive cut in U.S. humanitarian assistance. If you go back two years now to 2024, the final year of the Biden administration, the U.S. provided $14 billion of global humanitarian assistance.

Now, needs in the world are just about the same as they were then. They certainly haven't gone down. If anything, they have gone up. And this is $12 billion less from that $14 billion. So, if this $2 billion is the end of the story and it's all the U.S. is going to provide, that is catastrophic, frankly.

William Brangham:

What do you think the answer to that question is going to be? Is this $2 billion a down payment or is this it?

Jeremy Konyndyk:

That is not clear. And that's actually quite important, because, if you are the entire U.N. system working across these, I believe it's 17 countries that are eligible for this assistance, you really need to know if you're stretching that $2 billion out over the course of the next 12 months, or if this is just one of several payments.

You're going to plan very differently, you're going to invest very differently, you're going to allocate that money very differently if this is the first tranche of several, or if this is it for the entire year. That kind of uncertainty is really tough for humanitarians to deal with. And I very much hope that it's not the final word.

But I think it would be very important for the administration to make clear what their larger humanitarian funding plans are, whether that will ultimately go through this channel or others.

William Brangham:

The U.S. also said that there are 17 nations that this aid can go to, and many of those are in dire need, as designated by the U.N., but it also excluded three different nation-states, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Gaza, saying that they seem -- they're suspect about the governance in those places.

What do you make of that, that exclusion?

Jeremy Konyndyk:

I think Gaza is a bit of a unique category, because the U.S. has been funding there, just through other channels directly to NGOs, and, hopefully, that will continue.

I'm more troubled by the exclusion of Yemen and Afghanistan. These are countries where obviously the current administration has a very adversarial relationship with the de facto authorities in both of those places, but that shouldn't be a reason why civilians in those countries, who have massive needs, should suffer.

It's almost a double condemnation of Afghan women, for example. On the one hand, they have to live under Taliban-imposed gender apartheid, and, on the other hand, because of that Taliban government, which they did not choose, now the U.S. is pulling aid from them as well.

For many, many years, traditionally, across administrations, the U.S. has drawn a distinction between a country's government and a country's people, and we want to support the people, even if we are at odds with the government. This really demolishes that distinction, and I think that does huge damage to America's moral leadership and strategic leadership in the world in the long run, because people will remember that even after governments change.

William Brangham:

One of the other accusations the Trump administration has made is that this new streamlined process will eliminate what they argue is the woke ideology in humanitarian aid, the gender ideology, that climate change -- that, in fact, no aid can go directly to climate-related projects.

Again, what do you make of that exclusion?

Jeremy Konyndyk:

I think it's -- on one level, it's silly. And on another level, it really misunderstands why those things are important.

It's silly in the sense that the role of gender considerations in humanitarian aid, climate considerations in humanitarian aid is not about woke ideology. And, frankly, there was not a huge difference in U.S. humanitarian funding priorities from the first Trump administration into the Biden administration. There was, I would say, continuity of probably 90-plus percent of the programs that were being funded.

But, more importantly, gender considerations are really important. There is huge, huge, mass sexual violence happening in Sudan right now, mass sexual violence that happened over the past few years in the war in Tigray, mass sexual violence happening right now in Eastern Congo. That's what we mean when we're talking about gender programs.

I would hope that rape survivors deserve U.S. support. I would hope as well that the administration understands that the role of climate change in humanitarian action is that it causes more droughts, which mean more people starve. And if we ignore that, we're not ignoring -- they're not -- they're not writing out some so-called woke ideology.

What they're writing out is starvation and sexual violence and things that are really fundamental dimensions of humanitarian response.

William Brangham:

All right, that is Jeremy Konyndyk of Refugees International.

Always great to speak with you. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Konyndyk:

Thank you.