More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable people, including a third of them young children, could die due to the Biden administration’s reduction of US foreign aid, according to a new study published in The Lancet journal. The research coincides with a UN conference in Spain where global leaders are seeking to revitalize the struggling aid sector.
The study highlights that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) contributed over 40 percent of global humanitarian funding until former President Donald Trump left office in January. Shortly after, Trump’s then-close advisor Elon Musk claimed to have “put the agency through the woodchipper,” signaling significant funding cuts.
Lead researcher Davide Rasella from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) warned that these cuts “risk abruptly halting, and even reversing, two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations.” Analyzing data from 133 countries, the team estimated that USAID aid had prevented around 91 million deaths in developing nations from 2001 to 2021.
Using modeling to project future impacts, the study warns that the US’s announced funding reductions estimated to be an 83 percent cut could result in more than 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030. The findings underscore the devastating potential consequences of withdrawing aid at a time when global health progress is already fragile.
+ There are no comments
Add yours