‘Funding by USAID prevented 91.8mn deaths worldwide’

According to the paper, children under five years old benefited the most with a 32% decrease in mortality rates, corresponding to 30.4 million prevented deaths

New Delhi: The programmes funded by USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) have prevented approximately 91.8 million deaths, according to a new study published in The Lancet on Monday.

The study estimated that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programs have prevented more than 91 million deaths globally (REUTERS)

The study highlights striking reductions of deaths associated with high levels of USAID funding, especially from diseases such as HIV/AIDS (65% reduction, corresponding to 25.5 million deaths prevented), malaria (51% reduction, 8.0 million), neglected tropical diseases (50% reduction, 8.9 million), diarrhoeal diseases (46% reduction, 11.2 million), lower respiratory infections (31% reduction, 8.9 million), and tuberculosis (29% reduction, 4.7 million).

“In this retrospective impact evaluation integrated with forecasting analysis, we used panel data from 133 countries and territories— including all low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs)—with USAID support ranging from none to very high,” said authors in the paper titled ‘Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis’.

Between 2017 and 2020, the agency responded to at least 240 natural disasters and crises worldwide; in 2016 alone, the organisation provided food assistance to at least 53 million people across 47 countries. USAID has also been a supporter of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and pledged $1·16 billion over 2020–23 to support the organisation.

The study also estimates that recent and proposed cuts to USAID funding threaten the gains made over the past 20 years and could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million among young children, potentially reversing decades of progress in global health.

USAID has been adversely impacted by the massive budget cuts and lay-offs this year. On Jan 20, 2025, the Donald Trump administration released the executive order to reevaluate and realign United States Foreign Aid, which suspended existing foreign aid programmes, except for emergency food assistance and military aid. On March 10, 2025, it was announced that 83% of the programmes run by USAID would be cancelled.

The USAID was created by the US government in 1961, to provide foreign aid and development assistance to countries in need. Since then, it has been the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid for low and middle-income countries.

The US has been the largest donor in absolute terms— providing more than US$55 billion in official development assistance (ODA) in 2023 and accounting for approximately 30% of total Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries’ ODA.

In addition, the authors said that the US administration’s decisions compound cuts by other donors, pushing both humanitarian and development systems to the brink of collapse. “As a matter of fact, other western donors have announced reductions in aid budgets,41 including the UK (40%), France (37%), the Netherlands (30%), and Belgium (25%), which represents a substantial funding crisis in the humanitarian and development aid sector… These decreases not only threatens to reverse three decades of unprecedented human progress, but also intensifies the extraordinary uncertainty and vulnerability already caused by the ongoing polycrisis,” said authors in the paper.

The authors also added that, to date, only a few assessments, most of them not peerreviewed and focused on health-related USAID programmes, have tried to estimate the impact of USAID and the effects of the current funding cuts on specific diseases.

They added that their study provides crucial evidence for policymakers and the public on the life-saving role of international aid and call on governments, policymakers, and NGOs to take urgent action to sustain funding to protect the health and futures of millions of people worldwide.