On July 1, 2025, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officially ceased to exist, with its few remaining programs and staff absorbed into the U.S. State Department. With its closure, U.S. foreign assistance funding dropped to $13 billion, a substantial decrease from the average $51.4 billion that the United States spent annually between 1946 and 2023. Historically, the United States has been the largest funder of development and humanitarian assistance worldwide and a global leader in the sector. In the future of foreign aid series, SFS faculty and alumni weigh in on the impact of these changes and the opportunities that they may present.
Raj Kumar (SFS’97) discusses what kind of opportunities the immense changes provide to improve the way international development and aid are structured and delivered. Kumar is a 1997 graduate of the School of Foreign Service and the founding president and editor-in-chief of Devex, a media platform for the global development community.
The brutal reality? We’re witnessing the largest contraction in development funding in history. The U.S. shut down USAID, which distributed over $38 billion in aid in 2023 alone. European donors are cutting back amid domestic pressures. “My-country-first” politics is dismantling decades of international cooperation. PEPFAR – which saved 25 million lives and prevented another 5.5 million children from being born with HIV—faces existential threats. And we’ve now reached the unusual point where a private entity—the Gates Foundation—is the largest funder of the World Health Organization, effectively privatizing global health governance.
The human cost is staggering. Experts estimate 16.8 million pregnant women may lose access to essential services, one million children with severe malnutrition may go untreated, and we could see 12-18 million more cases of malaria each year. These funding cuts translate directly into human suffering—measurable increases in death rates from decisions made in donor capitals.
Rebuilding better
But from this devastation emerges a harsh opportunity to rebuild something better. The old system was bloated, bureaucratic and often ineffective—a fact that made these cuts politically palatable. Billions flowed through intermediaries while we measured inputs, not outcomes.
This moment presents a chance to think big and have bolder ambitions about solving major problems—like ending child marriage or eliminating infectious diseases entirely. Rather than designing programs to satisfy donor politics, we can finally focus on what actually works. Which interventions deliver results per dollar? How do we build stronger narratives about why this work matters to skeptical constituencies? The programs that survive and emerge will be leaner, more targeted and more accountable—because they’ll have to be.
Direct cash transfers frequently outperform complex development programs. Local organizations often deliver better results at a fraction of the cost—yet still receive only 1.2% of humanitarian assistance. The philanthropic sector is already adapting: the Gates Foundation just committed a historic pledge of $200 billion with a sunset deadline, forcing rapid deployment and measurable impact rather than perpetual bureaucracy.
Make no mistake: these aren’t just budget cuts. They represent a fundamental breakdown in the global safety net that millions depend on for survival. But from this crisis, we can build a more effective, accountable and sustainable approach to global development—one that prioritizes results over rhetoric and impact over institutional preservation.
How did Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service prepare you for the work you are doing now?
Georgetown SFS taught me to see connections that often get missed. As a journalist covering global development, that training is essential—understanding how monetary policy in Washington ripples through to health outcomes in rural Bangladesh or how Chinese Belt and Road projects fundamentally alter the political economy of sub-Saharan Africa. The program’s rigorous analysis taught me to look past the obvious story and examine underlying power dynamics and unexpected consequences. Most importantly, SFS gave me intellectual humility about development work and a healthy skepticism of feel-good narratives—critical for covering a sector being forced to prove its worth with measurable results.