I waited a long time – maybe too long – to start this blog, EvalThoughts. I have been planning it since the end of 2019, when my professional hero, Molly Hageboeck, told me I had more to give. She was nice about it, but she was also telling me not to coast. I understood her point: I needed to do more than just evaluate foreign aid projects, sleep, repeat.
It took me a while to actually get it done, but two weeks ago I published my first post, for program evaluators working in international development and cooperation projects.
Then, the new U.S. administration unceremoniously shut down USAID.
Sending out my next blog post wouldn’t be very helpful to anyone right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks we’ll all have plumbed our networks and gnashed our teeth enough that a blog post like that will be a nice distraction. But not today.
Taking a chainsaw to the government
The Orange Monster is golfing, but his minions have their orders, straight from the playbook of Project 2025. They have halted all foreign aid projects, all scientific and health research, and the great majority of domestic loans and grants – like for Head Start, school lunches, and non-profit hospitals.
This has been done no matter the size of the funding, the populations served or how the “pause” affects them. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been rated five stars or one for effectiveness or efficiency. Well, except weapons for Israel and Egypt. Sure, keep that going, right? Because they’ve proven themselves so wise about their use.
I have no illusions that Trump will ever start up foreign aid again. I believe he is trying to gut the government. He has already sidelined hundreds of U.S. government employees all over the country and he’s gearing up to take that into the thousands – by falsely classifying employees and getting rid of them at his whim. There’s no decision-making, no prioritizing, just Shut It All Down.
Why? To cut expenses so he can let corporations pay even less tax than they already do.
Altruism, or some-true-ism
I keep saying that I’m less worried about me than I am about all these other terrible things the new administration is doing. Our own military being used in his draconian and wasteful deportation plans. Firing watchdog inspector generals and neutral advocates. Purging whoever is not his lapdog. Declaring there are only two sexes. There’s a hell of a lot to be worried about, and he’s just getting started.
But of course I’m worried about me, too. At no time since I started this career have I been threatened with it… ending. Not even a natural ending: when people talk about retiring, I think to myself, “What? Who wants to retire?” I love what I do. I’ve always known that was a very privileged position to be in (among my other privileges like being white, middle class, and generously educated). Adversity does make you stronger, so I’m noticing that having had a job I love for 20+ years has left me vulnerable.
No, I’m not giving up or knuckling under. I am writing to contacts and looking for other opportunities outside of U.S. agencies. I’m networking on LinkedIn. I’m writing my blogs and going out for daily walks. But I know this is cataclysmic for so many people who rely on aid. And it’s horrible for people who earnestly want to do something to make the world a better place.
What Americans don’t know about aid
I imagine Americans who voted for Trump are happy about all of this. They may not know that foreign aid is less than 1% of the federal budget (compared to Defense, which is closer to 15% and is now run by someone who couldn’t simply stay sober enough to lead small charity organizations.)
I heard voters say we should be spending foreign aid money at home, on Americans. Well, most aid money (at least 67%) actually goes to American farmers, companies, charities, and individuals. The money buys and ships American food, medicine, schoolbooks, and experts to improve outcomes for the poorest people. When we fly to those countries for work we are required by law to use American airlines. This is part of the law that foreign aid lives by – and most people are completely unaware of it.
So, the stop work order hurts the U.S. and its people, its farmers, and its businesses, while leaving the world’s poorest people without even that limited support.
There is a reason why foreign aid has been something Republicans and Democrats have agreed on, since the end of World War II. Foreign aid is a tool, alongside diplomacy, economic incentives, and the military, and it is GOOD for America’s interests. There is waste, including high-profile high-dollar spending in Afghanistan that has evaporated. There are lots of unmet goals. But you can track every penny spent in USAID programs: they have very high accounting and accountability demands.
This is my job, after all. I can critique USAID waaaaaaay better than 99% of Americans, including the current administration. The reason I write this blog is because we can do better in providing aid.
But if I find a worm in an orange, I don’t set fire to Fresno.
Worse before it gets better
Trump continues to work as if there were no such thing as checks and balances. He is flooding the news with these pronouncements so that he can cause confusion and disarray and dismay. That way, he can get at least some of them past the courts and past Congress. Americans should be outraged; we should be in the streets, and we should be calling our representatives and senators. They, in turn, should be pushing back, hard.
This unhinged rampage is a gift to China, and a gift to Iran. The human costs are staggering in the short term, as programs struggle to keep their medicine supply chains working by hook or by crook. People will die, just because Trump’s team wants to “shock and awe” instead of the much harder work of weighing evidence, prioritizing, adjusting programs.
The halt also gags USAID employees, which was underscored last night when some 60 senior-level officials were put on administrative leave. And what did these 60 people do to earn that? “Circumventing” the executive order. But if there are no loopholes, no cutouts, no waivers, what kind of circumventing could they possibly have done? If it weren’t so deadly serious, this would be a farce of epic proportions.
Instead it’s a catastrophe. One the current administration chose and put in place, by design.
We are in for a long four years. We can’t just ride this out. He wants to undo all the improvements made over nearly 250 years of our country. If he can he will be a dictator, with his friends holding all the strings, all the power. He is already joking/not joking about changing the Constitution to allow presidents a third term.
Easy answers probably not forthcoming
No one has great answers right now. On LinkedIn I was appalled out to see that lots of people are kowtowing to the new administration. But if you have a company with hundreds of employees or a project with fifteen on your staff, it makes sense you’d do what you could to stop the order ruining their livelihoods. Doesn’t make it any less painful to see people “obeying in advance” but we still have to find ways to resist.
In a democracy, that’s through our elected officials. Don’t hesitate, if you’re an American in any constituency. Call or write your senators, call or write your representatives. Share your stories and don’t accept weak responses from those who are answering the phones. Tax dollars pay for those offices to be ready to respond to constituents. Push. Insist.
And everyone has stories. Stories of what’s going on in your corner of the world, without your project. If anyone would like to share their story on this blog, please send your story to keri@kericulver.com. It’s a small platform, but use this one or whatever you have: this blog, others, the press and newsletters in your countries and cities, WhatsApp, Telegram, whatever. If we can shame him, let’s do it. If we can rile up the U.S. Congress, let’s do it. If we can impel allies to complain to the administration, let’s do it.
One more thing you can do is read. Find a source or sources you trust and I’ll keep a running list here of non-firewalled reading that will keep us in the fight. Don’t read so much that you spiral – or if you do, shut off the phone and take a walk, love your family, take a kickboxing class – whatever it takes to stay sane.
I’ll put up the list of resources on my website and link to it in the next blog.
Photo credit:
A person wears a Donald Trump mask at an anti-Trump protest in New York on Monday after his inauguration. Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian From the Reuters article: Anti-Trump protests sweep the globe on inauguration day – in pictures People worldwide take to the streets after Donald Trump was sworn in as US president on Monday Compiled by Julius Constantine Motal Mon 20 Jan 2025 22.44 CET
