How 3 weeks broke a structure built over decades
🌐 Along with US aid, soft power is dissipating.
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
WorldWise readers—
"Shifts in the global development landscape already starting to take shape”. That was my editorial note while gathering the first reports of the new US administration’s actions.
Just after the election result, I told myself that this space would stay free of reporting the constant provocative statements that were a feature of the first four years. After all, part of what we’ve been doing here is about paying attention beyond established centres of power.
It soon became clear we’re now well past the point of rhetoric. My resolution had to be abandoned, at least for now, at least to capture this moment.
Following from and providing context to last week’s commentary, today’s post leads with a snapshot—based on curated news and analysis*—of how a series of actions taken by the Trump administration in the span of less than 4 weeks brought seismic changes to long-established foundational structures in global aid, environmental protection and social justice.
Anita
*For those interested in the background material: the sources and details behind the overview are available to paid subscribers in a special edition of our Briefing Notes (a gift subscription is available).
INSIGHT | views & analysis
It kicked off just a couple of days after inauguration.
That’s when the first reports began to track shifts in policy that would have a global impact—mainly the expected withdrawals from WHO and the Paris Agreement, but also the first signs of a broader shakeup. The new government instructed federal health agencies to pause all external communications. The first analyses focused on the cost and opportunities of the UN withdrawals.
But then, an avalanche…
Work cutbacks | The US Centers of Disease Control (CDC) was ordered to stop working with the WHO immediately and before a withdrawal takes effect. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) was ordered to put a stop to all meetings and travel, followed by a cut of more than $4 billion in funding for biomedical science that is expected to hit large universities and other research centres. Large budget cuts also hit the National Science Foundation (NSF). The country’s environmental protection agency (EPA) was given a week to decide on whether to abandon its authority to regulate climate pollution. Scientists at the agency responsible for weather monitoring and research (NOAA) were told to log and clear international contacts and communication.
More UN withdrawals | An order was signed instructing a withdrawal from the Human Rights Council, (UNHRC) and the main UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA). The US government also said it would review its involvement in the UN’s organisation for education, science and culture (UNESCO). It also repealed $4 billion it had pledged for the UN climate fund.
Data deletions | The government revoked directives put in place by previous administrations that instructed agencies to consider environmental justice in their work. The CDC was ordered to cut gender-related terms from its scientific papers. Several agencies were ordered to scrub their websites of data or references to LGBTQ+ groups, certain vaccines, climate change, Indigenous peoples, and any content related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The purge amounts to more than 8000 webpages across a dozen websites, which contain data that researchers, medics and reporters rely on for research and monitoring. Some of these were later restored after a successful legal challenge.
Following a directive, Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America for users in the US.
In consequence | Some of these actions were temporarily halted or reversed after dozens of lawsuits alleging violations of the US Constitution. Observers expect many of the challenges to end up in the Supreme Court, seen as unlikely to pull things back enough to make a real difference. In a bid to avoid funding cuts, according to reports, the UN’s International Organization for Migration proceeded to quietly remove references to DEI, gender-based violence, and LGBTQ+ rights from its website.
In painful detail: the demise of USAID
Devex led coverage on this with a series of exclusives that revealed the shocking actions and speed with which the new government gutted an agency that has funded vital aid operations around the world for decades.
Stop work | A stop-work executive order was reported on January 24th. This was to last 90 days while programmes are reviewed, exempting only emergency food programmes and military aid to Israel and Egypt. The directives then started to reach organisations partnering with USAID. The stop-work order was shortly followed by a waiver which spares lifesaving humanitarian aid while the review is being completed. But this caused confusion and is considered ineffective without enough staffing and resources to deliver aid effectively.
Staffing purge | Staff were barred from discussing the orders publicly. Dozens of the agency’s senior staff were put on leave, with reports that many had denied Elon Musk’s team access to agency’s data. The USAID website went down. Hundreds of contracts and grants were terminated with immediate effect. Hundreds of contractors were furloughed and told to go home, while overseas workers were recalled. Eventually, it emerged that this amounted to most of the agency’s staff. Reports that in the course of 2 weeks the workforce was slashed to just under 300 employees—down 95% from 14,000—were followed by an update that this had doubled to 600. Then came reports of a court ruling that put a temporary pause on the staffing purge. But the news kept coming…
Disappearing DEI | Directives against diversity, equity and inclusion that were given to other agencies also applied to USAID, which was ordered to terminate staff in DEI offices. This was then extended to some global programmes—the administration began to block references to DEI in UNICEF’s work.
Is this the end? | The series of cutbacks led Devex’s editors to declare the end for the agency—or at least openly wondering if reporting USAID’s impending death would be greatly exaggerated. Other publishers began to raise closure of the agency as a possibility, as reports suggested that Trump and Musk had agreed to shut it down and merge it with the US State Department.
Reporting & warnings on the repercussions
Alongside the unrelenting pace of developments came analyses of repercussions—what’s the fallout from US support for global programmes coming to an abrupt end?
Poverty & sustainability | Growing mortality from hunger, disease as food aid and medical care almost grind to a halt and famine warning systems go offline. Actions to prevent climate change, deforestation, environmental degradation and health crises will get weaker. Security and parts of the domestic economy that cater to the international aid industry are also expected to suffer. Reporting of the knock-on effects will continue to grow, and Devex has already mapped out some of the fallout.
The followers | On cue, Argentina’s far-right leader Javier Milei has announced the country will withdraw from the WHO too. Reports suggest it’s also considering a pullout from the Paris agreement. Ditto Indonesia, arguing that it’s unfair for developing countries to be bound to its commitments when a major polluter has pulled out. Perhaps more surprising is the move by major tech companies including Google to drop diversity recruitment goals. And the Bezos Earth Fund has cut its support for the Science Based Targets initiative, which sets standards for voluntary climate targets—one of several billionaires seen to abandon climate support under Trump.
The aid & development sector | The expected merger of USAID with the State Department has a precedent in a similar merger that took place in the UK years ago, and crucially, over a much longer time period. Experts look to that example to warn that development expertise eventually disappears, alongside the infrastructure and soft power built by successive governments over decades. Meanwhile—and as successful legal challenges buy some time—the executive orders have left organisations without funding and staff without jobs as thousands of positions get axed, even at large international NGOs. The aid sector is struggling to adapt by scaling back, a process that had already began as foreign aid levels declined in recent years. The shift is seen as a permanent one. Some reports go even further, suggesting that the Trump administration has plans to promote fossil fuels through its new version of USAID.
The end of global leadership for the US?
What do these momentous shifts really amount to, in the bigger picture? I’ll focus on the international side of things—but first, this excerpt from Erwin Chemerinsky’s opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.
If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration. For my book “No Democracy Lasts Forever,” I studied how democracies die and are replaced by authoritarian regimes. Almost always the rulers are elected rather than coming to power through a coup, and then they consolidate authority and silence their critics.
On the global front, it’s “the beginning of the end” of US global health leadership, says Council of Foreign Relations Senior Fellow David P. Fidler. When it comes to climate change, some analysts believe that Trump’s rhetoric is expected to find a more positive reception as threats to energy security hold back more ambitious action. At the same time, the climate market is only growing, and scaling back US investment is only expected to create room for other countries to take advantage of opportunities. Ditto with aid and geopolitics. China is in prime position to swoop in, but some reports point to the EU, Brazil, and African nations as expected beneficiaries of the power vacuum.
In the words of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, as reported by Devex:
“One thing the U.S. will lose is that soft power it has wielded in the world — I mean, these are people that are grateful for the assistance they get.
We will continue to cooperate with other countries and that’s why we have a multipolar world.
As bridges are burning, new bridges are being formed.
So, how to respond?
I’ve given a view in last week’s post—and there’s a whole range of analyses to learn from and consider. Some commentators believe there’s scope to work with the new administration, either to persuade it to change course or find a compromise on how to reform the programmes under review. Others focus on how the development sector should adapt to an era where countries no longer depend on aid. The adaptation message also comes up in a call to focus on where positive action can be taken. Then there are those who urge tireless monitoring and resistance, even rule-breaking, in the face of actions that compromise human rights.
I’ll leave it here, with a last word from Willow Defebaugh, co-founder & editor-in-chief of Atmos:
In the face of a changing landscape, now more than ever we must take a page from nature’s playbook and learn to adapt.
📌 Sources and details are available to paid subscribers here (a gift subscription is available).
GLOBAL BRIEFING | around the world
News highlights
🏗 On development
South Africa, which took over the G20 presidency in December, intends to push for greater equity in global governance and give more prominence to Africa’s development agenda, Christopher Vandome writes for Chatham House.
Beyond the benefits of economic cooperation, countries of the Global South are joining the BRICS bloc motivated by a shared desire to shape a new international order—that’s why it’s “the hottest multilateral ticket in town”, according to Gordon LaForge for World Politics Review. For the South Centre, Ding Yifan looks at why de-dollarisation can serve BRICS countries’ interest.
At the Paris AI Action Summit, co-chaired by India, there were signs of a shift from traditional power centres towards an approach where countries of the Global South aren’t just participants but architects of the emerging AI order, writes Trisha Ray for the Atlantic Council.
Picking up on the excitement around accessing Greenland's minerals, Sarah Derouin writes for BBC Future with a reality-check on the process of finding, extracting, and transporting its natural riches. Meanwhile, The Economist throws its spotlight on the potential to exploit an ice-free Arctic.
Antonella Bancalari and Juan Carlo Rud write in VoxDev about how Peru has boosted local development through tax revenues from mining and other forms of natural resource extraction.
🔥 On climate change
A local company is leading Pakistan’s push for electric rickshaws as a mainstream transport option, reports Kunwar Khuldune Shahid for Rest of World. In India, leading car-maker Hyundai has teamed up with an Indian motorbike firm to unveil e-rickshaws tailor-made for local conditions, Alyn Griffiths writes for Dezeen.
Experience from Pakistan and South Africa shows how cheap solar power can undermine electrical grids, writes the Economist. For Bloomberg, Lars Paulsson highlights a trend of renewable energy pushing power prices into “negative”.
Most countries have missed a February deadline to submit new national climate plans, report Rosie Frost for Euronews and Chico Harlan for The Washington Post. Meanwhile, scientists say it’s all-but-certain that the 1.5C global temperature threshold has now been breached, Kendra Pierre-Lewis reports for Bloomberg.
January was the hottest on record, despite the cooling effect of the La Niña weather cycle, Joe Wertz and Brian K Sullivan report also for Bloomberg. Last year’s wildfires were part of what drove a record leap in carbon dioxide levels, Damian Carrington reports for The Guardian.
The intense storms and other disasters that become more common as the climate warms are linked with higher levels of domestic violence against women—even long after the weather event is over, write Yale Climate Connections and Beatrice Tridimas for Context.
Ahead of hosting the COP30 climate summit this year, Brazil´s President Lula is backing approval for exploratory oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River, Fabiano Maisonnave reports for AP News. Microsoft has agreed a deal where it pays to restore part of the Amazon rainforest in exchange for carbon credits to offset AI emissions, according to the FT.
🌱 On environmental protection
The damage from mercury pollution caused by illegal mining in a rural part of Colombia has been repaired with help from plants that absorb toxins as they grow, Andrea Jaramillo reports for Bloomberg.
Indonesia is set to resume industrial-scale sand mining for export, an activity previously banned for completely destroying 26 islands, write Bioantika and Hernandi Albeto Octaviano for The Conversation. Meanwhile, a local scientist whose testimony helped secure rulings against perpetrators of illegal tin mining is facing a third lawsuit, Hans Nicholas Jong reports for Mongabay.
Droughts that span multiple years have become drier, hotter and more frequent over the past 40 years, Yanine Quiroz reports for Carbon Brief. In Suriname, an intense drought has triggered food and water shortages, disrupting access to transport, health care and education, Jason Pinas reports for The Guardian.
Pollution and exploitation are draining the colour from Senegal’s Lake Retba, known as Lac Rose for its signature mauve and scarlet-pink waters, Omnia Saed reports for Atmos.
Fred Pearce reports for Yale E360 on the staggering environmental toll of the war in Gaza. Staying with this conflict, Kate McMahon reports for Atmos “from Palestine’s first ecovillage, where villagers are resisting Israeli rule by growing their own food, harvesting their own solar power, and collecting their own rainwater”.
🦠 On global health
Microplastics are building up in the human body including the brain, Olivia Ferrari reports for National Geographic. A separate study found a higher risk of cardiovascular risk in people who had microplastics or nanoplastics embedded in fatty plaques in their blood vessels, Elaine Chen reports for STAT.
Two landmark agreements backed by a $1.2 billion investment from Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, are setting Africa on a path towards independence by becoming a producer, not just a buyer of vaccines, reports Paul Adepoju for Health Policy Watch.
Respiratory infections soared between 2020 and 2023 in residential areas next to a major nickel processing site on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island, while the value of exports increased in the same period, Rabul Sawal reports for Mongabay. Meanwhile, the country has kicked off nationwide free health screenings aimed at preventing early deaths, Heru Asprihanto and Stanley Widianto report for Reuters.
Famine was first declared in the summer of 2024 in Sudan, where a civil war is raging since April 2023, but it’s now intensifying according to reports by Tim Bishop and Christina Wille for Think Global Health and Lilia Sebouai and Simon Townsley report for the Telegraph.
Views of Note
💡 AI is driving biased perceptions of environmental damage, Hamish van der Ven argues in The Conversation.
We asked four chatbots the same series of questions about the issues, causes, consequences and solutions to nine environmental challenges. We found evidence of systematic biases in their responses. Most notably, chatbots avoid mentioning radical solutions to environmental challenges. They are far more likely to propose combinations of soft economic, social or political changes, like greater deployment of sustainable technologies and broader public awareness and education.
💡 In the mineral-rich Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), history is repeating itself as neocolonialism now shapes cobalt extraction, write Brandon Marc Finn and Patrick Brandful Cobbinah for The Conversation.
The human rights abuses and perils of today’s cobalt mining are new forms of old colonial practices. They strip the land and people of resources without proper pay. They offer green minerals to the global north at the cost of lives in the global south.
💡 British Bangladeshi social economist Naila Kabeer and colleagues write for The Conversation with a call for a more complex framing of gender, care and climate change.
Certain stereotypes about women have become commonplace in climate and development literature. One example is that women are either represented as “saviours” who protect nature, or as “victims” more vulnerable to climate impacts than men and less equipped to cope. Simple either/or ways of seeing women overlook the power dynamics and structural factors that give rise to the stereotypes.
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UPDATE | from the network
Nominations are now open for the 2026 World Food Prize—deadline 1 May. The prestigious $500,000 award recognises, rewards and celebrates individuals driving exceptional progress towards food security. It honours achievements through creative interventions within the food system, including and not limited to animal science and aquaculture, economics, food technology, storage and distribution. Know someone who might fit the profile? Click here to check out the full eligibility criteria and submit a nomination.
PS.
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