Food Security
With food rations halved in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, families are increasingly going hungry. Martin Komol, “a widowed father of five from Uganda, has been living on handouts from neighbors since his latest monthly ration ran out two weeks ago.” “But they can't escape hunger. Komol's 10-year-old daughter immerses herself in schoolbooks when there's nothing to eat.” “The shrinking rations have led to rising cases of malnutrition among children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.”
AP, 06/20/25
The Department of Agriculture has terminated 17 projects under the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, which funds school meals for children in low-income countries. “The program uses corn, rice, beans and a fortified soy blend from U.S. farmers for school meals that are prepared by 10,000 volunteers,” according to the Catholic Relief Services, whose cancelled program in Honduras served “97,000 children across more than 1,700 schools in rural areas where malnutrition and stunting” are serious issues. A Catholic Relief Services spokesperson warned that the cuts will lead to “more desperation and more migration.”
Reuters, 5/22/25
Aid organization “Action Against Hunger” is closing its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul this week because of the U.S. funding cuts. More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20% from 2024.”
AP, 4/15/2025
The U.S. used to be one of the UN World Food Program’s biggest donors, with their main country of focus being Ethiopia. These “populations continue to suffer from frequent food shortages with a government that’s often unable to fund emergency support for its own citizens.” Many of these communities were heavily reliant on USAID, so the aid cuts “had a devastating impact on millions of Ethiopians.”
PBS, 04/11/25
“In countries like Afghanistan and Yemen, where millions of people do not have enough food, U.S.-backed humanitarian aid was completely cut off. Several countries where conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, such as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, lost millions of dollars in support for critical food assistance...The World Food Program estimates that the loss of U.S. funding in Afghanistan will end food assistance that about two million people rely on — including approximately 400,000 malnourished children and mothers. In Yemen, food aid for 2.4 million people would come to an end, while in Congo, all food assistance in the eastern part of the country would cease.”
New York Times, 04/09/2025
In Vietnam, the foreign aid freeze abruptly halted clean up on a chemical spill at Bien Hoa air base, resulting in “exposed open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange.” Rainy season is approaching and, with enough rain, “soil contaminated with dioxin could flood into nearby communities, poisoning their food supplies.”
ProPublica, 03/17/2025
The UN World Food Program “will have to cut monthly food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from $12.50 to $6” in April, unless it can raise emergency funds to replace those lost in the US funding freeze. The $6 ration will “not allow refugees to meet the ‘minimum standard’ for energy and nutrition” pregnant and breastfeeding women will be at increased risk.
Reuters, 03/05/2025
In Ethiopia, food assistance for more than one million people has stopped.
AP, 03/01/2025
In Somalia, a program to provide nearly 1 million children with treatment for severe malnutrition was terminated. The program had previously received waivers to continue delivering lifesaving assistance.
Devex, 02/28/2025
Due to the U.S. aid cut, almost 80% of emergency food kitchens in Sudan set up to help people left destitute by the civil war have closed. Almost 1,100 communal kitchens have been closed affecting “nearly two million people struggling to survive.”
BBC, 02/24/2025
“In a rural area of central Somalia, a water infrastructure project expected to bring food security to more than 1.65 million people is officially on hold.” Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group, operates in the area and has found success recruiting from communities struck by drought or floods.
Devex, 02/19/2025
In Haiti, the stop-work order will cause 15,000 people to go hungry, fueling gang recruiting and instability.
Global Health Council, 02/05/2025
In Nepal, where 50,000 babies under one die annually and malnutrition is the leading cause of child mortality, work on a $72 million Integrated Nutrition Program was suspended.
New York Times, 01/31/2025
“Save the Children, the largest non-governmental provider of health and nutrition services to children in Somalia, said the lives of 55,000 children will be at risk by June as it closes 121 nutrition centers it can no longer fund. Aid cuts mean that 11% more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in the previous year.” In addition, “CARE has warned that 4.6 million people in Somalia are projected to face severe hunger by June.” “The funding cuts have left UNICEF’s partners unable to provide lifesaving support, including therapeutic supplies and supplemental nutrition at a time when 15% of Somali children are acutely malnourished, said Simon Karanja, a regional UNICEF official.”
Seattle Times/AP, 5/26/25
In Sudan, “twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital” died of malnourishment. USAID-funded soup kitchens had been “the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.”
New York Times, 04/19/25
MANA Nutrition, producer of the lifesaving “Plumpy’Nut” nutritional peanut mixture sent to malnourished communities worldwide, is now reliant on British billionaire. Despite the help, however, without U.S. assistance, there is not enough assurance that “they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don’t expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever.”
AP, 04/14/25
“In Nigeria, where around 80,000 children per month require treatment,” UNICEF expects to run out of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food in the next two months.
Forbes, 03/27/2025
“Government officials from Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands told The Associated Press that a combined $15 million they contributed for joint development work overseas has been parked at” USAID. According to a Swedish government spokesperson, the U.S. failure to disburse or refund this funding is harming “6 million of the poorest and most vulnerable farmers in the world who are dependent on the technologies for their food production and food security.”
AP, 03/24/2025
Food, water, and sanitation services to the 40,000 person Al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria were interrupted, worsening humanitarian conditions for vulnerable refugees and serving as a recruitment tool for Islamic State militants.
BBC, 01/29/2025
In Haiti, “Action Against Hunger shut down a program that worked with about 13,000 Haitians to educate families about better nutrition and provided training for pregnant and breastfeeding women, among other services.”
The New York Times, 02/21/2025
On February 6, USAID announced a waiver for “lifesaving global health services, including management of severe acute malnutrition with RUTFs [Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods] — but only if their absence could ‘lead to mortality in women, newborns, and children under five.’ ... The stop-work order is still in effect for almost everything else, from malnutrition screenings at health centers to ongoing monitoring and other forms of aid, such as cash vouchers, that keep families from going hungry in the first place.”
Devex, 02/19/2025
“In South Sudan, at least $200 million in emergency food aid is unable to reach some 5 million people in a place where 60% are extremely food-insecure. Much of it is en route or piled in a warehouse in Mombasa, Kenya.”
Devex, 02/07/2025
“[I]n Bangladesh, food rations for 1 million refugees are running low, and they could face a 50% reduction in rations for March.”
Devex, 02/07/2025
In Afghanistan, where humanitarian aid groups provide almost all critical services, 50 national and international aid organizations suspended operations, partly or entirely, across the country. Approximately 15 million Afghans, mostly women and children, are in dire need of food aid.
NPR, 02/03/2025
434 of 634 volunteer kitchens in Khartoum, the battle-torn capital of Sudan, have shut down. The volunteer-run kitchens fed 816,000 people.
Devex, 01/29/2025
“As a result of USAID cuts, “in Somalia, dozens of centers treating the hungry are closing. They have been crucial in a country described as having one of the world’s most fragile health systems as it wrestles with decades of insecurity.”
AP, 05/27/25
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday canceled existing grants under its Food for Progress food aid program.” “The USDA issued more than $218 million in Food for Progress grants in 2024, to send [U.S.] crops like milled rice, soybean meal, wheat, and yellow soybeans to countries, including Tanzania, Tunisia and Sri Lanka.”
Reuters, 05/14/2025
According to Avril Benoît, the CEO of Doctors Without Borders, their “nutrition programs in Baidoa, Somalia, have reported an increase in malnutrition admissions since the funding cuts. MSF admitted, all of a sudden, 195 children with severe acute malnutrition in March alone. Severe acute malnutrition means that if the children don't receive therapy, they could die within weeks. The MSF-supported Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa has received patients, especially women, who have come from as far as 120 miles away. When the wider network of health-care services shuts down, it means people have to travel that much further to where our programs are located, and that time, that distance, you can imagine for somebody who's sick or carrying a severely malnourished child, could mean life or death. It's one of the reasons that community health programs are so important.”
Time, 4/30/25
The Dutch government is struggling to obtain clarity on more than 1.5 million euros that was contributed for USAID projects “focused on water and energy consumption in the agricultural sectors of countries like Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, and Yemen.” The government has been “unable to get any definitive information” about whether that money has been spent.
NL Times, 03/25/2025
In South Sudan, a weekly program to provide “emergency high-nutrition paste to save the lives of young children with severe acute malnutrition” has ended, leaving many of those children to starve.
The New York Times, 03/15/2025
The World Food Program will close its southern Africa office due to the foreign aid cuts. This program “relied on the US for nearly half its budget.”
Semafor, 03/04/2025
Action Against Hunger, a food security aid group in Congo, “will stop treating tens of thousands of malnourished children.”
AP, 03/01/2025
“In northeast Syria, a program providing water, sanitation services, and food assistance to more than 100,000 has ended.”
Devex, 02/28/2025
“A project serving more than 144,000 people in Bangladesh that provided food for malnourished pregnant women and vitamin A to children” has been canceled.
The New York Times, 02/27/2025
In Nigeria, a U.S.-based nonprofit began running out of ready-to-use therapeutic food for severely malnourished children in three states. “Once the permission came through [to release the food from warehouses], the staff members who would normally distribute the food were unavailable because their employer did not have the funding or permission to let them work.”
New York Times, 02/21/2025
In Nigeria, the Danish Refugee Council has stopped treating 150 children under the age of 5 each month who suffer from severe acute malnutrition. “It has also stopped providing supplemental nutritional assistance to 400 children monthly and halted cash aid that helps 30,000 displaced people meet their basic food needs on their own.”
Devex, 02/19/2025
In Ethiopia, “almost 50,000 women and girls, including some who are pregnant and breastfeeding, will be at risk of potentially fatal malnutrition.”
Global Health Council, 02/05/2025
FEWS NET– a US-funded famine early warning system – has been taken offline. The network helps direct the effective distribution of food aid to tens of millions of people around the world.
The Guardian, 01/31/2025
In Nepal, where 50,000 babies under one die annually and malnutrition is the leading cause of child mortality, work on a $72 million Integrated Nutrition Program was suspended.
The New York Times, 01/31/2025
Aid agencies in Ethiopia have secured USAID for waivers to continue handing out U.S. grain, but USAID’s payments system is still not functioning. “As a result, a consortium of aid agencies in Tigray has had to stop distributions to the over 1 million people it has been responsible for feeding with U.S.-provided grain. It has no money to pay for fuel, trucks and drivers to distribute existing food stockpiles. That includes 5,000 metric tons of sorghum – enough to feed 300,000 people for a month – stuck in a storage facility in Mekele that could rot before it reaches those in need.”
AP, 3/13/25
“In Liberia, a school feeding program that reached 25,000 children — and had previously increased attendance by 40% — has been terminated.”
Devex, 02/28/2025
“A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 people in camps for displaced people” has been canceled.
The New York Times, 02/27/2025
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General: govrelations@a4al.org
Media: presssecretary@a4al.org
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Become a Member!
Contributions or gifts to A4AL are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
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Food Security
With food rations halved in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, families are increasingly going hungry. Martin Komol, “a widowed father of five from Uganda, has been living on handouts from neighbors since his latest monthly ration ran out two weeks ago.” “But they can't escape hunger. Komol's 10-year-old daughter immerses herself in schoolbooks when there's nothing to eat.” “The shrinking rations have led to rising cases of malnutrition among children under 5 and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.”
AP, 06/20/25
The Department of Agriculture has terminated 17 projects under the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, which funds school meals for children in low-income countries. “The program uses corn, rice, beans and a fortified soy blend from U.S. farmers for school meals that are prepared by 10,000 volunteers,” according to the Catholic Relief Services, whose cancelled program in Honduras served “97,000 children across more than 1,700 schools in rural areas where malnutrition and stunting” are serious issues. A Catholic Relief Services spokesperson warned that the cuts will lead to “more desperation and more migration.”
Reuters, 5/22/25
Aid organization “Action Against Hunger” is closing its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul this week because of the U.S. funding cuts. More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20% from 2024.”
AP, 4/15/2025
The U.S. used to be one of the UN World Food Program’s biggest donors, with their main country of focus being Ethiopia. These “populations continue to suffer from frequent food shortages with a government that’s often unable to fund emergency support for its own citizens.” Many of these communities were heavily reliant on USAID, so the aid cuts “had a devastating impact on millions of Ethiopians.”
PBS, 04/11/25
“In countries like Afghanistan and Yemen, where millions of people do not have enough food, U.S.-backed humanitarian aid was completely cut off. Several countries where conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, such as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, lost millions of dollars in support for critical food assistance...The World Food Program estimates that the loss of U.S. funding in Afghanistan will end food assistance that about two million people rely on — including approximately 400,000 malnourished children and mothers. In Yemen, food aid for 2.4 million people would come to an end, while in Congo, all food assistance in the eastern part of the country would cease.”
New York Times, 04/09/2025
In Vietnam, the foreign aid freeze abruptly halted clean up on a chemical spill at Bien Hoa air base, resulting in “exposed open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange.” Rainy season is approaching and, with enough rain, “soil contaminated with dioxin could flood into nearby communities, poisoning their food supplies.”
ProPublica, 03/17/2025
The UN World Food Program “will have to cut monthly food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from $12.50 to $6” in April, unless it can raise emergency funds to replace those lost in the US funding freeze. The $6 ration will “not allow refugees to meet the ‘minimum standard’ for energy and nutrition” pregnant and breastfeeding women will be at increased risk.
Reuters, 03/05/2025
In Ethiopia, food assistance for more than one million people has stopped.
AP, 03/01/2025
In Somalia, a program to provide nearly 1 million children with treatment for severe malnutrition was terminated. The program had previously received waivers to continue delivering lifesaving assistance.
Devex, 02/28/2025
Due to the U.S. aid cut, almost 80% of emergency food kitchens in Sudan set up to help people left destitute by the civil war have closed. Almost 1,100 communal kitchens have been closed affecting “nearly two million people struggling to survive.”
BBC, 02/24/2025
“In a rural area of central Somalia, a water infrastructure project expected to bring food security to more than 1.65 million people is officially on hold.” Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked militant group, operates in the area and has found success recruiting from communities struck by drought or floods.
Devex, 02/19/2025
In Haiti, the stop-work order will cause 15,000 people to go hungry, fueling gang recruiting and instability.
Global Health Council, 02/05/2025
In Nepal, where 50,000 babies under one die annually and malnutrition is the leading cause of child mortality, work on a $72 million Integrated Nutrition Program was suspended.
New York Times, 01/31/2025
“Save the Children, the largest non-governmental provider of health and nutrition services to children in Somalia, said the lives of 55,000 children will be at risk by June as it closes 121 nutrition centers it can no longer fund. Aid cuts mean that 11% more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in the previous year.” In addition, “CARE has warned that 4.6 million people in Somalia are projected to face severe hunger by June.” “The funding cuts have left UNICEF’s partners unable to provide lifesaving support, including therapeutic supplies and supplemental nutrition at a time when 15% of Somali children are acutely malnourished, said Simon Karanja, a regional UNICEF official.”
Seattle Times/AP, 5/26/25
In Sudan, “twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital” died of malnourishment. USAID-funded soup kitchens had been “the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.”
New York Times, 04/19/25
MANA Nutrition, producer of the lifesaving “Plumpy’Nut” nutritional peanut mixture sent to malnourished communities worldwide, is now reliant on British billionaire. Despite the help, however, without U.S. assistance, there is not enough assurance that “they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don’t expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever.”
AP, 04/14/25
“In Nigeria, where around 80,000 children per month require treatment,” UNICEF expects to run out of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food in the next two months.
Forbes, 03/27/2025
“Government officials from Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands told The Associated Press that a combined $15 million they contributed for joint development work overseas has been parked at” USAID. According to a Swedish government spokesperson, the U.S. failure to disburse or refund this funding is harming “6 million of the poorest and most vulnerable farmers in the world who are dependent on the technologies for their food production and food security.”
AP, 03/24/2025
Food, water, and sanitation services to the 40,000 person Al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria were interrupted, worsening humanitarian conditions for vulnerable refugees and serving as a recruitment tool for Islamic State militants.
BBC, 01/29/2025
In Haiti, “Action Against Hunger shut down a program that worked with about 13,000 Haitians to educate families about better nutrition and provided training for pregnant and breastfeeding women, among other services.”
The New York Times, 02/21/2025
On February 6, USAID announced a waiver for “lifesaving global health services, including management of severe acute malnutrition with RUTFs [Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods] — but only if their absence could ‘lead to mortality in women, newborns, and children under five.’ ... The stop-work order is still in effect for almost everything else, from malnutrition screenings at health centers to ongoing monitoring and other forms of aid, such as cash vouchers, that keep families from going hungry in the first place.”
Devex, 02/19/2025
“In South Sudan, at least $200 million in emergency food aid is unable to reach some 5 million people in a place where 60% are extremely food-insecure. Much of it is en route or piled in a warehouse in Mombasa, Kenya.”
Devex, 02/07/2025
“[I]n Bangladesh, food rations for 1 million refugees are running low, and they could face a 50% reduction in rations for March.”
Devex, 02/07/2025
In Afghanistan, where humanitarian aid groups provide almost all critical services, 50 national and international aid organizations suspended operations, partly or entirely, across the country. Approximately 15 million Afghans, mostly women and children, are in dire need of food aid.
NPR, 02/03/2025
434 of 634 volunteer kitchens in Khartoum, the battle-torn capital of Sudan, have shut down. The volunteer-run kitchens fed 816,000 people.
Devex, 01/29/2025
“As a result of USAID cuts, “in Somalia, dozens of centers treating the hungry are closing. They have been crucial in a country described as having one of the world’s most fragile health systems as it wrestles with decades of insecurity.”
AP, 05/27/25
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday canceled existing grants under its Food for Progress food aid program.” “The USDA issued more than $218 million in Food for Progress grants in 2024, to send [U.S.] crops like milled rice, soybean meal, wheat, and yellow soybeans to countries, including Tanzania, Tunisia and Sri Lanka.”
Reuters, 05/14/2025
According to Avril Benoît, the CEO of Doctors Without Borders, their “nutrition programs in Baidoa, Somalia, have reported an increase in malnutrition admissions since the funding cuts. MSF admitted, all of a sudden, 195 children with severe acute malnutrition in March alone. Severe acute malnutrition means that if the children don't receive therapy, they could die within weeks. The MSF-supported Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa has received patients, especially women, who have come from as far as 120 miles away. When the wider network of health-care services shuts down, it means people have to travel that much further to where our programs are located, and that time, that distance, you can imagine for somebody who's sick or carrying a severely malnourished child, could mean life or death. It's one of the reasons that community health programs are so important.”
Time, 4/30/25
The Dutch government is struggling to obtain clarity on more than 1.5 million euros that was contributed for USAID projects “focused on water and energy consumption in the agricultural sectors of countries like Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, and Yemen.” The government has been “unable to get any definitive information” about whether that money has been spent.
NL Times, 03/25/2025
In South Sudan, a weekly program to provide “emergency high-nutrition paste to save the lives of young children with severe acute malnutrition” has ended, leaving many of those children to starve.
The New York Times, 03/15/2025
The World Food Program will close its southern Africa office due to the foreign aid cuts. This program “relied on the US for nearly half its budget.”
Semafor, 03/04/2025
Action Against Hunger, a food security aid group in Congo, “will stop treating tens of thousands of malnourished children.”
AP, 03/01/2025
“In northeast Syria, a program providing water, sanitation services, and food assistance to more than 100,000 has ended.”
Devex, 02/28/2025
“A project serving more than 144,000 people in Bangladesh that provided food for malnourished pregnant women and vitamin A to children” has been canceled.
The New York Times, 02/27/2025
In Nigeria, a U.S.-based nonprofit began running out of ready-to-use therapeutic food for severely malnourished children in three states. “Once the permission came through [to release the food from warehouses], the staff members who would normally distribute the food were unavailable because their employer did not have the funding or permission to let them work.”
New York Times, 02/21/2025
In Nigeria, the Danish Refugee Council has stopped treating 150 children under the age of 5 each month who suffer from severe acute malnutrition. “It has also stopped providing supplemental nutritional assistance to 400 children monthly and halted cash aid that helps 30,000 displaced people meet their basic food needs on their own.”
Devex, 02/19/2025
In Ethiopia, “almost 50,000 women and girls, including some who are pregnant and breastfeeding, will be at risk of potentially fatal malnutrition.”
Global Health Council, 02/05/2025
FEWS NET– a US-funded famine early warning system – has been taken offline. The network helps direct the effective distribution of food aid to tens of millions of people around the world.
The Guardian, 01/31/2025
In Nepal, where 50,000 babies under one die annually and malnutrition is the leading cause of child mortality, work on a $72 million Integrated Nutrition Program was suspended.
The New York Times, 01/31/2025
Aid agencies in Ethiopia have secured USAID for waivers to continue handing out U.S. grain, but USAID’s payments system is still not functioning. “As a result, a consortium of aid agencies in Tigray has had to stop distributions to the over 1 million people it has been responsible for feeding with U.S.-provided grain. It has no money to pay for fuel, trucks and drivers to distribute existing food stockpiles. That includes 5,000 metric tons of sorghum – enough to feed 300,000 people for a month – stuck in a storage facility in Mekele that could rot before it reaches those in need.”
AP, 3/13/25
“In Liberia, a school feeding program that reached 25,000 children — and had previously increased attendance by 40% — has been terminated.”
Devex, 02/28/2025
“A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 people in camps for displaced people” has been canceled.
The New York Times, 02/27/2025