USAID closure means hospitals will rot and millions will die

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has  

 

Professor Rosa Freedman, Law Conflict and Global Development at the 色狗导航, comments on the impact the closure of USAID will have worldwide. To arrange interviews with Professor Freedman, contact the 色狗导航 Press Office on 0118 378 5757 or pressoffice@reading.ac.uk 

“The USAID cuts and the ending of foreign aid grants worldwide will have a devastating impact. estimates USAID has saved more than 90 million lives over the past two decades, and if current cuts continue through to 2030, 14 million people could die. 

 

“Key to USAID’s impact has been its healthcare programmes supporting governments, local councils and local community organisations to run hospitals and clinics, as well as vaccine programmes and HIV prevention schemes. Many of the people who work on these programmes, who are from local communities and the national civil service of various governments, will no longer have funding for their jobs. This will include doctors, teachers, nurses and many more important actors. They will move into roles in other sectors and possibly even leave the country, meaning that even if the programmes were to restart in the future, they’d need to be built from scratch. These are interconnected, interwoven programmes that have been designed and implemented over many years. 

 

“The infrastructure built using USAID funding will simply rot without foreign aid. In countries like Nigeria, with a large middle-class, hospitals and schools will be funded and built in the long-term. In lesser-developed countries, there simply aren’t the skills or finances to rebuild those hospitals, schools and clinics. Millions of people will die or suffer because of this.”