Why I signed up to the 10% Pledge in the wake of foreign aid cuts, and where you can donate

By salonium @ 2025-04-14T12:33 (+67)

This is a linkpost to https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/we-dont-have-to-sit-back-and-just

I signed up to the 10% Pledge from Giving What We Can and donated 19% of my annual income this year, in response to the foreign aid cuts.

In a recent blogpost, I give a summary of what has happened, why I pledged, how I thought about where to donate, and what individuals can do.

You can read it here: We don't have to sit back and just watch the horror unfold.

Summary / highlights:

• The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has provided HIV treatment to 20 million people annually and is estimated to have saved around 25 million lives. PMI (President’s Malaria Initiative) is estimated to have saved more than 10 million lives through malaria prevention and treatment.
• The US aid freeze beginning in January led to the abrupt shutdown of many global health programs. They meant that, for example, hundreds of thousands of people lost access to HIV treatment each day, and that more than 1,000 additional newborns were contracting HIV daily because HIV-positive mothers lost access to treatment.
• Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur have estimated that a complete aid freeze would result in around 6,000 additional deaths per day, or 3.3 million over a year.
• On March 10, the Trump administration terminated more than 86% of foreign aid awards after a "90 day review" that ended in 35 days – meaning about one award was terminated roughly every 80 seconds.
• Courts ruled some aid cuts were illegal, compelling the administration to resume about $2 billion in funding.
• Still, it seems that about a quarter of HIV program funding has been permanently terminated, along with around 83% of funding for maternal and child health programs, 40% for malaria, 90% for pandemic influenza and other emerging threats, and 56% for water supply and sanitation. (source)
• The Demographic and Health Surveys was also terminated — this is critical because it's the only source of good data on mortality, nutrition, and other areas in many poor countries.
• The US also withdrew all their funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which helps vaccinate millions of children against diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria, and cervical cancer in low-income countries. It was previously their largest donor (at 12%).
• Since thousands of USAID staff were laid off, even those programs whose funding was restored are still disrupted. Both USAID’s main website and PEPFAR’s data portal are still unavailable.
• The cuts have threatened not just short-term services but also years of built-up expertise, infrastructure, and institutional capacity. Once lost, these are difficult to rebuild and could set back global health progress in the long-term.

Here is a brief list of some of the places you could donate:

• GiveWell – A nonprofit that identifies and recommends some of the most cost-effective, evidence-based charities in global health. In response to the aid cuts, they’ve prioritized filling urgent funding gaps in malaria prevention, HIV testing, and healthcare worker training.
• Project Resource Optimization – A team of researchers and cost-effectiveness analysts who built a live list of high-impact USAID-funded programs affected by the aid freeze. They’re talking regularly with implementing partners to identify the most urgent and cost-effective projects at risk of shutting down. On their ‘funding opportunities’ page, you can find programs directly affected and donate to them directly, or contact the research team for more information.
• Foreign Aid Bridge Fund – An emergency philanthropic fund created to support lifesaving programs suddenly defunded by the foreign aid freeze. It focuses on bridging short-term gaps to prevent program collapse, such as HIV clinics in Kenya and Zimbabwe, health programs in Ethiopia, and disaster-resilient housing in Nepal.
• Rapid Response Fund – Another emergency philanthropic fund launched by Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save to quickly support top-rated global health and poverty programs facing sudden shortfalls. It provides emergency funding to keep high-impact interventions running during the aid cuts.
• Gavi – A public-private global health partnership that provides vaccines to millions of children in low-income countries. The US withdrew all their funding for Gavi, putting global vaccination campaigns at risk.