Looking into Project 2025: USAID

Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise is 922 pages of US governing proposals from the Heritage Foundation, with ideas for multiple departments. From the recent executive orders it seems like parts of Project 2025 are already or in the process of being implemented.

They have a 30 page section on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and I thought it would be useful to go through and see what the new US government may be attempting to do in the next few years. I’ve given a brief summary of most of the topics without much comment.

Key Issues

Aligning U.S. Foreign Aid to U.S. Foreign Policy

• U.S. foreign aid currently suffers from fragmentation across approximately 20 different government offices, agencies, and departments, resulting in poor alignment with broader foreign policy strategy.
• The proposed solution is to authorise the USAID Administrator to serve as Director of Foreign Assistance (at Deputy Secretary level within the State Department), enabling better coordination of aid programs and alignment with policy objectives.

Countering China’s Development Challenge

• China's Belt and Road Initiative has deployed billions in loans and investments across Latin America and Africa, often creating "debt traps" that advance China's strategic interests while undermining local economies and U.S. influence.
• The Trump administration established several counter-China programs through USAID (including "Clear Choice," Digital Strategy, and new bilateral partnerships), but these were largely discontinued under the Biden administration in favor of climate-focused policies.
• The administration should restore USAID's counter-China programs and prioritise aid to countries that resist Chinese influence, while cutting funding to partners that engage with Chinese entities.

Climate Change

• USAID was declared "a climate agency," redirecting its focus towards transitioning countries away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
• Argues that climate-focused policy has worsened global food insecurity and poverty by driving up energy prices and limiting access to natural gas-based fertilisers, Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban is an example of failed climate policies.
• Recommends that USAID should abandon its anti-fossil fuel stance and instead support responsible management of oil and gas reserves, whilst limiting climate funding to strengthen the resilience of countries that are most vulnerable to climatic shifts.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Agenda

• USAID's DEI infrastructure is criticised for racialising the agency, creating a hostile work environment, threatening merit-based advancement, politicising the workplace, corrupting the award process, and discouraging contractors who disagree.
• Recommends that the administration should dismantle all DEI infrastructure.

Refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children, and Families

• Criticises USAID's gender policies for diluting focus on women, children and families by promoting progressive interests, including abortion rights.
• Recommends renaming the Office of Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment to the Office of Women, Children and Families, appointing a pro-life coordinator and refocusing USAID's mission on providing basic human needs (including water, healthcare, and education) whilst implementing the Geneva Consensus Declaration and prioritising partnerships with faith-based organisations.

Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance

• Under Biden's administration, the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA) policy was reversed, whilst funding was restored to organisations that support abortion services, including the UN Population Fund and various NGOs.
• Advocates for the administration to issue a broader executive order that would reinstate PLGHA and also close existing loopholes in all foreign assistance (including humanitarian aid), improving enforcement, and implementing stricter reporting requirements for all USAID-funded entities.

International Religious Freedom

• Under Trump's previous administration, USAID prioritised religious freedom through Executive Order 13926, allocating $50 million yearly for related programmes and set up a Chief Adviser for International Religious Freedom who reported directly to the Administrator with the task of coordinating a “whole-of-USAID” approach to achieving this priority.
• Suggests training all USAID staff on connections between religious freedom and development; integrate it into all of the agency’s programs, strengthen the missions’ relationships with local faith-based leaders; and build on local programs that are serving the poor.
• Congress should appropriate funding to USAID specifically to support persecuted religious minorities in line with Executive Order 13926.

Streamlining Procurement and Localizing the Partner Base

• Recommends appointing a political appointee as Senior Procurement Executive and restoring the Senior Official Accountability Review process. USAID's current procurement process is seen as favouring large, expensive contractors over more cost-effective local alternatives.
• Highlights PEPFAR as a successful example of "localisation" which increased local entity funding from 25% to 70% (due for renewal in March 2025).
• Suggests expanding the New Partnership Initiative across all bureaus, setting minimum percentages for local partner funding, and increasing open competition whilst eliminating cost-plus reimbursement contracts.

Global Health

• Global Health Bureau measures success by money spent rather than outcomes achieved, while maintaining programming patterns from decades ago. Suggests that effective use of funds is essential to maximise care for the world’s neediest people.
• The Bureau should identify and eliminate outdated and ineffective concepts and focus on funding innovation.
• The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that countries with strong local health institutions responded better, supporting the argument for "localisation" - helping developing countries build their own healthcare capabilities rather than simply funding programmes "in" rather than "with" countries.
• Suggests updating the Global Health Bureau’s portfolio, emphasising a comprehensive approach to supporting women, children, and families; building host-country institutional capacity and increasing awards to local and faith-based partners.
  • “The next leadership at USAID must focus attention on women and children’s health (including unborn children) as well as health risks across life spans, including childhood infections, cervical cancer, adolescent risks, and family stability, by utilizing a coordinated approach”.
  • “It is time for these programs to become part of an integrated, strong, and sustainable network of health care and public health in developing countries. A smooth transition to national ownership and funding, however, will require better coordination of USAID’s own stovepiped programs with PEPFAR and PMI.”
• Implement updates to all of USAID’s global health programs systems for the collection and reporting of data to increase transparency and hold funded partners and overseas missions accountable.
• “The Bureau’s Center for Innovation and Impact should be empowered to expand networks of private and faith-based health organizations that can develop projects using development-impact bonds, capital funds, and innovative technologies”.
• “The Global Health Bureau should address its own management challenges by modifying the high ratio of contractors to direct hires, holding career leadership accountable for effective management, and building more flexibility in emergency responses”.

Holding Multilateral Organizations Accountable

• Should designate a political appointee to help coordinate cross-agency efforts to hold the U.S. government’s multilateral partners to a higher level of financial and programmatic accountability (UN, WHO).

Global Humanitarian Assistance

• Over 80% of the emergency budget now goes towards long-term man-made crises rather than natural disasters, with the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance's budget having doubled in recent years.
• Argues that current practices are often counterproductive - they sustain war economies, create incentives for continued conflict, and allow corrupt regimes to redirect their budgets away from social services towards military spending and personal enrichment, as in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
• International organisations managing aid distribution have high overhead costs - the World Food Programme charges 36% whilst Oxfam International's overhead has reached 70% in Yemen - yet continue to receive increased funding without providing evidence to justify their mounting budget requests.
• Recommendations:
  • Make deep cuts to aid in regions controlled by malign actors.
  • Develop clear exit strategies with time limits.
  • Transition from large awards to U.N. agencies, global NGOs, and contractors to local, especially faith-based.

Leveraging Foreign Aid to Unleash the Power of America’s Private Sector

• Recommends stronger alignment between USAID and DFC, suggesting a "dual hat" role for DFC's chief development officer, whilst advocating for DFC to return to its original purpose of providing commercial risk-reducing financial services rather than focusing on climate and diversity initiatives.

Branding

• The Senior Advisor for Brand Management in the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs should be a political appointee who is responsible for maximizing the visibility of U.S. assistance by enforcing branding policy on every grant, cooperative agreement, and contract.

Regions

Asia

• The Indo-Pacific region is critical in countering China's exploitation of developing nations, with USAID needing to align its foreign aid strategy with America's broader Indo-Pacific objectives.
• USAID should strengthen partnerships with pro-market democratic allies (Japan, Australia, South Korea, India and Taiwan) to advance private-sector solutions for infrastructure, digital connectivity and economic development.
• Despite China's significant state-backed financing in developing nations, particularly in vulnerable Pacific states, the collective private-sector capacity of democratic nations represents a more powerful economic tool, though current aid policies often fail to effectively advance U.S. interests, as exemplified by Pakistan's continued anti-American stance despite receiving $12 billion in aid since 2010.

Middle East

• Increased regional vulnerability since 2020, with Tunisia moving towards autocracy, Iraq falling under Iranian influence, and U.S. foreign aid inadvertently supporting Iran-allied regimes.
• Abraham Accords shifted focus from the Arab-Israeli conflict to countering Iran's influence, with USAID programming aligned to strengthen regional alliances through trade and investment partnerships. However, under Biden, USAID has reverted to an aid-dependency model.
• Three key reforms:
  • Leveraging the Abraham Accords through joint investment initiatives with advanced economies like the UAE and Israel.
  • Reducing aid to Iran-allied states except for strategic priorities and religious minority support.
  • Restructuring USAID's regional operations to favour cost-effective local partners over international organisations.

Africa

• Despite significant achievements in addressing health crises (particularly HIV-AIDS and malaria), efforts to reduce poverty have been largely unsuccessful due to partnerships with an aid industry that lacks clear exit strategies.
• China has exploited Africa's continued poverty to become the continent's dominant force in trade, loans and investment, particularly controlling strategic minerals, while climate policies have hindered African development by restricting access to affordable energy.
• Recommended reforms:
  • Promoting economic self-reliance.
  • Catalysing private-sector solutions.
  • Expanding programmes like Prosper Africa.
  • Extending the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act with conditions rewarding good governance.
• Suggests following PEPFAR's successful model of increasing local entity funding from 20% to 70%, whilst reducing reliance on UN agencies and international NGOs.

Latin America

• The region has seen a shift towards leftist governments hostile to American interests, whilst authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela continue to generate humanitarian crises and migration pressures on the U.S. southern border.
• Latin America possesses significant advantages, including substantial energy and food resources, geographic proximity to the U.S., free-trade agreements, and strong diaspora connections, which could support development without aid dependency.
• Recommends:
  • Focusing on free market fundamentals.
  • Supporting private sector partnerships and civil society groups.
  • Transitioning to local organisations by 2030 rather than relying on U.S.-based implementers.