How Does the Hold on USAID Funding Affect Anera’s Work?

On January 24, the White House issued an executive order immediately halting for 90 days all existing programming funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). U.S. organizations delivering humanitarian relief and development programs around the world have been issued stop-work orders, endangering lives and pausing initiatives that make education, water and sanitation, economic development and more accessible to vulnerable populations.

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Anera has long worked to maintain a diversified funding base. This equips us to weather shocks and sudden changes in the funding environment, such as we see with USAID. Through the support of tens of thousands of individual donors, hailing from all 50 U.S. states and from 141 countries, as well as nearly 70 institutional donors and product donations partners, we are well positioned to keep serving needs in the region.

USAID has been a long time partner of Anera, and at various times a significant portion of our funding has been in partnership with the agency. For the past several years Anera had not held a grant or contract. However, recently we did win a competitive award process for a $50 million grant spanning five years for the Gaza Health Recovery Activity (GHRA). This USAID-funded activity is designed to restore and expand critical health services, including medicine and rehabilitative services, to individuals with a wide range of health needs. We project that 750,000 people will receive assistance through primary, secondary, and community health, nutrition, mental health and psychosocial support, and protection interventions over the lifetime of the program.

When the stop-work order was delivered, Anera had already hired multiple staff and was conducting an in-depth assessment of partner and community needs. The order required us to pause all work pending the agency review, which we did. We now await clarity from USAID on the path forward to resuming this critical investment in the Health Sector in Gaza.

Because the needs in Gaza are staggering, over the window of this pause, Anera plans to use other available resources and refocus the individuals we originally hired for the GHRA activity. They will direct their efforts on other parts of our health portfolio, including the privately-funded health clinics we have been delivering for months in Gaza, serving hundreds of people daily. We expect to continue this work and to scale our interventions to meet the needs of people across Gaza.

We believe USAID has an important and valuable history of delivering aid from the American people to areas of the globe most in need. A modest, but critical part of our nation’s foreign assistance, this support ensures that the U.S. is able to promote the best of American ideals and demonstrate our compassion. We are hopeful that USAID programs return following the current pause and review period, as we recognize the drastic impact of this stop to the many organizations tasked with carrying out important work in vulnerable communities around the world.

In the meantime, Anera will continue to deploy support from a variety of global actors who share our values and vision for responding to the humanitarian and development needs across the region. The current level of devastation and displacement in the communities we serve is drastic, and we remain committed to supporting their basic needs and aspirations for recovery.