Paper details
| Paper authors | Michelle Strucke and Marc J. Cohen |
| In panel on | The future of humanitarian research (Roundtable) |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
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Abstract
The Trump Administration’s abrupt dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and termination of many of its programs have had profound consequences for humanitarian funding. Given other DAC donors’ budget cuts, a huge share of the need for humanitarian assistance is likely to go unmet, at least in the near term. Increased morbidity, mortality, displacement, and human rights violations are probable.
This retrenchment has enormous implications for humanitarian research. USAID provided substantial investment in knowledge systems needed to ensure effective humanitarian efforts. These have, for example, greatly enhanced policy makers’ and researchers’ understanding of global acute food insecurity. Whether the important databases and analysis will remain available on a robust basis is in question. Other crucial humanitarian knowledge tools have abruptly become inaccessible, including the Development Experience Clearinghouse that provided access to six decades of program documentation, and the Demographic and Health Surveys.
Timely humanitarian data are essential for decisions about aid allocations. These data also provide important insights into how conflict and weather dynamics impact vulnerable communities. Defunding humanitarian knowledge systems substantially constrains research, precludes a comprehensive policy debate, makes democratic aid governance impossible, and above all does harm to people affected by humanitarian crises.
