Written by Olivia Nater | Published: November 17, 2025
The Guardian recently published an op-ed about US aid cuts. We sent a letter to the editor in response, which wasn’t published, so we are featuring it here.
We encourage all our members and supporters to make their voices heard! See our media guide for advice on how to do that.
Re: ‘They take the money and go’: why not everyone is mourning the end of USAID (Nov 4, 2025)
Even though Mara Kardas-Nelson acknowledges in her article that abruptly cutting off aid causes devastation, cursory readers will take away from it that recipient countries are not “mourning the end of USAID,” as the problematic headline suggests.
It is of course true that USAID was far from perfect, that global humanitarian aid could use an overhaul, and that ultimately low-income countries must reduce their dependence on foreign aid to have a better chance of sustaining large-scale welfare improvements. Nevertheless, foreign aid saves millions of lives every year — the Center for Global Development estimates that the combination of humanitarian, vaccine, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria assistance from the US alone saved 3.3 million people annually.
Ms. Kardas-Nelson notes that among the Sierra Leoneans she spoke with, “the feeling they most often expressed was not panic but resignation” — beneficiaries are accustomed to sporadic help followed by a return to a status quo of suffering. Resignation is arguably worse than panic, because it indicates an absence of hope.
Beyond its direct life-saving impacts, foreign assistance plays a critical role in moving the sustainable development needle in the right direction. Loss of funding in just one area can cause devastating setbacks that reverberate through society at a global level. For example, over the course of one year without US global family planning funding, an estimated 47.6 million women in low- and middle-income countries will lose access to modern contraception, which will result in approximately 17.1 million more unintended pregnancies and 34,000 more pregnancy-related deaths. Furthermore, the resulting surge in forced births will exacerbate poverty, population pressure, and unemployment, and increase the potential for conflict as disillusioned youths become radicalized. The last thing the world needs right now is for people to downplay the impact of the aid cuts.
Sincerely,
Olivia Nater
Communications Manager
Population Connection
