One year after USAID’s dismantling, funding fell by 43 percent, thousands of awards ended, and the U.S. Department of State’s smaller humanitarian bureau cannot replace the lost development capacity. Mortality estimates have been both modeled and contested, but regardless, documented disruption to health, food, and education programs is serious. Development is a national security tool, and its decimation demands accountability, data, and restored capability.
Signal Brief · Development, One Year Later
One Year Gone: The Human and Strategic Cost of Dismantling USAID
What Members and Candidates Need to Know · www.watchfirenatsec.org
- Development
- Diplomacy
At a glance
Estimated deaths
December 2025 model: 500,000–1 million additional FY2025 deaths; April 2026 follow-up cautions that the toll was likely substantially lower. No verified global death count.1,2
Funding drop
USAID obligations fell 43%, from $35.4B in FY2024 to $20.3B in FY2025.2
Contracts survived
An independent August 1, 2025 snapshot classified 3,052 of 11,004 tracked USAID and State awards as active: about 28%.9
Jobs affected
258,161 layoffs and furloughs outside the U.S., reported by 183 organizations as of January 13, 2026; the tracker separately lists 23,053 American workers.10
Dismantling cost
More than $6B in a June 2025 internal State estimate reported by Bloomberg; not an audited expenditure total.4
What replaced it
March 2026 announcement: roughly 200 staff, 12 regional hubs, and $5.4B annually for State’s new humanitarian bureau.11
One
The Situation
On July 1, 2025, State assumed responsibility for administering most foreign assistance previously managed by USAID.3 The agency’s development machinery had been dismantled; the human toll remains difficult to count. CGD’s December 2025 spending-based model suggested 500,000 to 1 million additional deaths in FY2025. Its April 2026 follow-up cautioned that mortality was likely substantially lower than the earlier forecast, potentially excepting humanitarian settings.1,2 What is firmly documented is the collapse in new commitments: USAID obligations fell from $35.4 billion in FY2024 to $20.3 billion in FY2025.2
Development is a national security tool. The damage to that capability makes Watchfire’s case in concrete terms: fewer commitments, disrupted programs, and expertise pushed out of the field.2,10
Two
What the Numbers Actually Show
- 159KModeled adult HIV deaths over one year in sub-Saharan Africa under an average three-month treatment interruption; PEPFAR tracker scenario8
- 80%615 of 770 global-health awards on the reviewed USAID list were marked terminated; KFF’s April 2025 analysis6
- $12.7BUnobligated funding associated with those terminated global-health awards—not money already spent6
- 34,000Additional preventable pregnancy-related deaths projected over one year if U.S. family-planning funding was not renewed and spent14
The HIV and pregnancy-related death figures are modeled scenarios, not counted deaths. Award terminations and unobligated funding come from KFF’s analysis of an April 2025 USAID list. These measures use different periods and definitions; do not add them into a total.6,8,14
Health infrastructure
KFF found that 615 of 770 global-health awards on USAID’s reviewed list were marked terminated. They carried $12.7 billion in unobligated funding, which can include future funds not yet appropriated.6 Guttmacher projected that 47.6 million women and couples would lose access to modern contraceptives over one year if U.S. funding was not renewed and spent.14 Those figures describe a threatened service system. They do not establish a measured global death toll.
Food, education, and livelihoods
Food and education programs were hit alongside health services. The inspector general’s February 2025 warning documented food assistance at risk in the delivery pipeline.5 UNICEF projected that global education-aid cuts could put 6 million additional children out of school by the end of 2026.16 That projection reflects cuts across donors, not USAID alone.
Three
What Replaced It, and Whether It’s Enough
In March 2026, State announced the new Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response with approximately 200 staff, 12 regional hubs, and $5.4 billion annually planned. Officials described a more streamlined mission focused on lifesaving aid and food security.11 Other assistance functions remain elsewhere in State.3 An independent tracker released in August 2025 classified only 28 percent of the USAID and State awards it followed as active.9 Watchfire’s assessment: a humanitarian bureau cannot replicate the capabilities of an entire development agency.
Four
Why Development Is a Defense Tool, Not Charity
Watchfire treats development as conflict prevention. Effective assistance can strengthen institutions, reduce vulnerability, and give the United States options before a crisis becomes a military problem. Dismantling that capability is more than a simple security gamble: disrupted food, health, and education programs compound fragility and weaken American influence, and that will lead to international crises.5,6,16 The human cost is immediate; the strategic consequences can last for years.
- The people who did this work are national security professionals. Losing their expertise is a capability loss and a historic loss of institutional knowledge.
- The dismantling carried its own price tag: Bloomberg reported a projected closure cost above $6 billion.4
- The successor structure hasn’t closed the gap. USAID’s work was split across State, and the new humanitarian bureau runs on about 200 staff and $5.4 billion a year.3,11
Five
What to Watch
| Area | What to monitor |
|---|---|
| Mortality data | Observed service coverage, treatment interruptions, nutrition outcomes, and representative mortality evidence; compare them with model assumptions. Include later revisions, not only the most alarming forecasts.1,2,7 |
| New bureau capacity | Actual staffing and vacancies, operating hubs, obligations and disbursements, response times, and unmet requests. Compare delivery with the March launch commitments.11 |
| Fragile-state indicators | Instability, displacement, and conflict trends in heavily affected regions; assess aid losses alongside pre-existing conflict, economic shocks, and other donor cuts. |
| Congressional appropriations | FY2027 funding is temporarily provided through December 11, 2026.17 The administration requested $35.51B net of proposed rescissions, 29.1% below FY2026. The House-passed NSRP bill would provide $47.37B net of rescissions, a 5.4% cut.13 Track final enactment and actual aid delivery. |
| Workforce | Whether displaced professionals return to government or aid organizations, move to other work, or leave the field; distinguish temporary furloughs from permanent departures.10 |
Six
Recommended Framing
This is a national security accounting exercise, not an appeal to charity.
On the Hill — ask for the successor’s numbers
Request current staffing, vacancies, obligations, disbursements, implementing partners, and response-time data. Ask which USAID capabilities were retained, which ended, and what rebuilding each would require.
On the trail — lead with investment
Frame foreign assistance as a security investment: prevention, functioning institutions, and crisis response can reduce the need for more expensive options later. Lead with what the country loses when that capability is dismantled.
On the ground — use the hard numbers
Use verified program and spending figures first. If citing CGD’s 500,000–1 million range, identify it as a December 2025 model and include the April 2026 reassessment.1,2 A claim gets stronger when it survives the full evidence record.
Across all contexts — the deepest cut
Development has been hollowed out. Its limited visibility in the news cycle is a reason to keep raising it.
Bottom line
USAID came apart in months. Rebuilding its expertise, partnerships, and delivery systems will take far longer. A new humanitarian bureau cannot, by itself, restore that development capability. The documented disruption is already serious enough to demand accountability; Watchfire does not need to turn projections into a verified death tally to make that case.
The bill for dismantling development capacity is already coming due.
Key sources & further reading
- 1.CGD / Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur, December 16, 2025. Update on Lives Lost from USAID Cuts.
- 2.CGD / Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur, April 23, 2026. USAID Spending at the Country and Sector Level: What Happened in Fiscal Year 2025?
- 3.USAID Office of Inspector General, 2025. Operation Inherent Resolve: April–June 2025 Quarterly Report.
- 4.Bloomberg / Ian Kullgren and Jack Fitzpatrick, June 26, 2025. USAID Shutdown Costs Top $6 Billion, Internal Estimate Shows. See also an accessible copy.
- 5.USAID Office of Inspector General, February 10, 2025. Oversight of USAID-Funded Humanitarian Assistance Programming Impacted by Staffing Reductions and Pause on Foreign Assistance.
- 6.KFF, April 17, 2025. Analysis of USAID’s Active and Terminated Awards List: How Many Are Global Health?
- 7.Impact Counter, reviewed October 5, 2026. Impact Metrics Dashboard.
- 8.PEPFAR Impact Counter, reviewed October 5, 2026. Methodology.
- 9.Wayan Vota / MyPivot, August 5, 2025. Updated Status: Remaining Funding.
- 10.USAID Stop Work, January 13, 2026 snapshot. Organizational Layoffs and Furloughs Tracker.
- 11.Reuters, March 20, 2026. US State Dept forms new humanitarian bureau after foreign aid overhaul.
- 12.AFSA and coalition signatories, February 2, 2026. One Year Later: A Coalition Statement on the Dismantling of USAID.
- 13.Congressional Research Service, updated July 30, 2026 (R48956). National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs: FY2027 Budget and Appropriations.
- 14.Guttmacher Institute, March 2025. Foreign Aid Cuts Will Lead to 34,000 More Pregnancy-Related Deaths in Just One Year.
- 15.Boston University School of Public Health, March 21, 2025. Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts.
- 16.UNICEF, September 2025. Global funding cuts could force 6 million more children out of school in the coming year.
- 17.Congressional Research Service, September 17, 2026 (R49353). Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027 (Division A of P.L. 119-103). See also the White House signing statement, September 2, 2026.
