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Inklings | What to make of Trump 2.0’s first days?

Notes and musings on how aid works, from The New Humanitarian’s policy editors.

The header image for the Inkling's newsletter entry of 23 January, 2025. On the top left you see Inklings written in a serif font with an ink bleed effect and underlined with a burgundy-coloured line. On the bottom right we see a list of the main topic: What to make of the Trump 2.0's first days?

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This is Inklings, where we explore all things aid and aid-adjacent unfolding in the wilds of Geneva, on the front lines of emergency response, or in the dark crevasse of primetime C-SPAN.

It’s also available as an email newsletter. Subscribe here.

Today: What Trump sees in aid and the UN, breaking down US funding dependence, and a new examination of cash for work.

On the radar|

And so begins Donald Trump’s second (and presumably final) term as US president. Some humanitarians have spent the week trying to figure out what a slew of me-first executive orders will mean. Threats to funding, yes, but how soon and how deep? Will there be humanitarian carve-outs? There’s a growing list to sift through: orders to freeze aid, to target the Houthis in Yemen (and those accused of supporting them), to quit the World Health Organization, to scapegoat migrants and refugees. Many are vague, to say the least – how do you define an order for new Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get State Department programmes “in line with an America First foreign policy, which puts America and its interests first”? But here are a few takeaways from the tea cup dregs:

The US sees strategic value in the UN, and this doesn’t change under Trump: The move to abandon the Paris Agreement, or the order to leave the WHO and quit negotiations for a pandemic treaty, may well be self-destructive to the United States. But these steps are ideological and political. Instead of a retreat from the world, however, the new Trump administration still sees the UN as a lever to counter China, and exert its all-caps branding. “I think it is very important we stay in those rooms,” Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for UN ambassador, said during a Senate confirmation hearing this week, claiming a need to “push back” against China. “We need to have a… long-term strategy working closely with our allies and our partners, both at the most junior levels and at the more senior levels within the UN,” Stefanik said. “We need to make sure we’re running candidates, either American or allied nations, in the elections process for key leadership posts within the UN system.”

  • This strategy includes (some) UN agencies: Stefanik had shout-outs for a small handful of UN agencies: the World Food Programme, she said, is “beneficial to America”, UNICEF delivers “significant results”, and the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, is a “proven organisation”. This doesn’t mean the mood won’t change with Trump’s whims, however. Meanwhile, the UN’s agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, continues to be a target, and funding for UNFPA, the reproductive health agency that saw its funding cut during Trump’s first term, is unclear. Asked for assurances about UNFPA, Stefanik said only that she would “review” the agency’s work as part of Trump’s larger aid freeze and audit.

Trump is transactional: The US financial dominance of the multilateral system has always given it a lever, and Trump has shown he’s willing to use money as a bludgeon. So while Trump’s order to withdraw from the WHO is punitive and political, is it also up for negotiation? “They wanted us back so badly, so we'll see what happens,” Trump said as he signed the executive order, according to the BBC. Humanitarians may cover their ears when their government funders talk politics, but the UN system itself thrives on horse-trading. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s term ends in 2027.

What about aid freezes? Humanitarians are still trying to decipher Trump’s executive order that calls for a review  of US foreign aid, and a 90-day pause in “new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds”. Waivers are an option, at Rubio’s discretion. Notably, Stefanik provided non-answers to several rounds of questions on the aid freeze during her confirmation hearing.

Data points|

This seems a good time for a data dump on just how much the UN system, and the humanitarian sector, depends on US cash.

Here’s the share of US funding to UN agencies compared to other governments (many agencies do have other, smaller revenue sources):

Here are updated stats on how the US dominates several sectors of humanitarian response:

And here’s a list of the biggest recipients of US humanitarian funding in 2024, according to UN tallies. The list includes organisations that recorded more than $5 million:

End notes|

If you spend too much time on C-SPAN, it might be easy to forget that there’s plenty happening outside Washington. Here are a few recent reads:

Cash for work: This rather scathing report is a critique of wage transfers via public works programmes. Why do projects fail? “Project planners and managers prioritised absorbing labour to justify wage payments, rather than creating assets that would generate benefits,” the authors write. The humanitarian equivalent might be so-called cash-for-work and food-for-work programmes. Question: Are the success metrics different, when some humanitarian cash-for-work programmes are intended to navigate strict host government regulations against cash, rather than create sustainable benefits?

Drones: This report from Insecurity Insight examines the rising toll of drone strikes on aid. There’s a handy one-pager on what to do if you see a drone. NB: “Yoga mats do not provide cover to individuals during drone attacks.”

Syria: A new report from ICVA, the NGO network whose full name exceeds Inklings character limits, outlines the opportunities and pitfalls of scaling up in Syria. The vibe: Include and fund Syria’s “vibrant civil society, which has demonstrated exceptional resilience, leadership, and operational capacity throughout the conflict”.

Have any tips, recommendations, or indecipherable acronyms to share with the Inklings newsletter? Get in touch: [email protected]

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