A vast shipment of food stranded in containers risks rotting before it reaches millions of hungry people. Deliveries of life-saving medicines to remote rural clinics are paused. And thousands of HIV patients and sexual violence survivors are abruptly cut off from support.
Donald Trump’s executive order freezing USAid funding for 90 days has derailed multiple vital activities in Ethiopia. Although some life-saving programmes have received waivers, most have not, and USAid officials in the country are scrambling to secure exemptions for their work even as they are threatened with dismissal by Elon Musk’s “government efficiency” agency.
In 2023 Ethiopia received American aid worth more than $1bn as it grappled with drought and civil conflict, making it the largest recipient of US assistance in sub-Saharan Africa and the fifth biggest in the world.
