Dismantling USAID: The Economist Charts Impacts

 The Economist published on 15 July 2025 an article titled "Five Charts Explain Trump's Cuts to Foreign Aid."

The Economist displays in five charts the impact of the dismantlement of USAID.  In terms of impact as a percent of gross national income, Africa is the most affected continent.  Funding cuts by sector primarily impact infrastructure (100%), basic education (99%), administrative costs (94%), and maternal and child health (92%).

The least affected programs are economic growth (12%), refugees and IDPs (13%), and HIV/AIDS (20%).  Projected global deaths in 2026 due to the health care cuts total 973,000.  

Cutting USAID Disease Prevention Programs in Ethiopia is Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

 The Hill published on 24 March 2025 an article titled "The Savings from Shuttering USAID Aren't Worth the Global Costs" by Neil Schluger, New York Medical College.

The author describes the fallout from the absence of USAID participation in and funding of a program in Ethiopia to control tuberculosis.  The amount of money saved is miniscule while the consequences are deadly.

Ethiopia: Cost-Effectiveness of Medical Interventions

The Lancet published in its May 2015 edition an article titled "Health Gains and Financial Risk Protection Afforded by Public Financing of Selected Interventions in Ethiopia: An Extended Cost-effectiveness Analysis."

The researchers looked at health gains (deaths averted) and financial risk protection afforded (cases of poverty averted) by nine interventions that the government of Ethiopia intends to make universally available. 

On a cost-effective basis, the interventions that avert the most deaths, in order, are measles vaccination, pneumococcal conjugate vaccination, and caesarean section surgery.  The interventions that avert the most cases of poverty are caesarean section surgery, tuberculosis treatment, and hypertension treatment.

The authors also included in the study rotavirus vaccination, diarrhoea treatment, malaria treatment, and pneumonia treatment. 

Health Issues in Ethiopia

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington released in June 2012 a report titled Advancing Health in Ethiopia. The authors, J. Stephen Morrison and Suzanne Brundage, know the issues well.

They point out that between 2003 and 2011, the United States provided more than $1.4 billion through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In the eight and a half years of the Global Fund's operations in Ethiopia, over $1.1 billion has been expended toward programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. These commitments have had significant results. In 2005, fewer than 1,000 Ethiopians were receiving anti-retroviral treatment. By 2011, more than 237,000 individuals had access to these life-saving drugs. Even more important, Ethiopia's HIV-prevalence rate has dropped to a modest 1.5 percent, with the problem concentrated in urban and peri-urban centers. The authors also suggest four steps to create a more strategic U.S. approach to health in Ethiopia.

Click here to read the entire report.