About 14 million people could die across the world over the next five years due to cuts for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
According to a new research published in the Lancet Medical Journal children under five are expected to make up around a third (4.5 million) of the mortalities.
Estimates showed that “unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030”.
“Beyond causing millions of avoidable deaths – particularly among the most vulnerable – these cuts risk reversing decades of progress in health and socioeconomic development in LMICs [low and middle-income countries],” the report said.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided over 40 percent of global humanitarian funding until Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, 2025.
The international team of researchers estimated that USAID funding had prevented 91 million deaths in 133 nations in developing countries between 2001 and 2021.
The agency’s work has been linked to a 65% fall in deaths from HIV/AIDS, or 25.5 million people.
Eight million deaths from Malaria, more than half the total, around 11 million from diarrheal diseases and nearly five million from tuberculosis (TB), have also been prevented.
USAID has been vital in improving global health, “especially in LMICs, particularly African nations,” according to the report.
Established in 1961, the agency was tasked with providing humanitarian assistance and helping economic growth in developing countries, especially those deemed strategic to Washington.
But the Trump administration has made little secret of its antipathy towards the agency, which became an early victim of cuts carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – formerly led by Elon Musk – in what the US government said was part of a broader plan to remove wasteful spending.
After USAID, several other major donors including Germany, the UK and France followed suit in announcing plans to slash their foreign aid budgets.
