Humanitarian Observatories Series | USAID suspension is a wake-up call to address fragility of Humanitarian Actions in Ethiopia

On the first day in office of his second presidential term, Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing the USAID for 90 days, reportedly to assess the programme’s ‘effectiveness and alignment with US foreign policy’. On 10 March 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ended the world’s most vulnerable communities’ slight hope by announcing the permanent suspension of the USAID’s 83% programme. This aggressive measure is the harshest blow to the organization’s operation since its establishment in 1961. The UK and Netherlands are also making similar moves, significantly diminishing their overseas development and humanitarian funding. The measure has a significant adverse impact in Ethiopia, where humanitarian aid is the only thread of hope, at least currently, for many affected communities, including millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs). In this blog, Alemayehu B. Hordofa and Marga F. Angerasa contend that humanitarian actors and donors have not achieved the necessary strengthening of local capacities to respond to the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia, and that they should redouble their efforts to take targeted normative and practical measures to enhance local resilience to counterbalance, in the long-term, the adverse impacts of policy changes in donor countries.

Humanitarian funding in Ethiopia Ethiopia is one of the biggest recipients of humanitarian aid in Africa. According to the 2024 Ethiopian Humanitarian Response Plan, over 21.4 million people in Ethiopia needed humanitarian assistance due to complex humanitarian crises such as climate change-induced disasters, armed conflicts, political violence, epidemic outbreaks and landslides. The conflict in Northern Ethiopia (2020-2022), the ongoing armed conflict in the Oromia and Amhara regions and climate change-induced food insecurity in south and south-west parts of the country displaced millions of individuals from their homes and have made them dependent on humanitarian aid. In some parts of the country, conflict(s) have coincided with drought, exacerbating the crisis and worsening the vulnerability of the affected communities. In 2024, the humanitarian community in Ethiopia appealed for 3.24  billion USD to reach 15.5 million people. This appeal raised only 1.79 billion USD, with the US government contributing 405.3 million USD. Beyond responding to the crisis as the primary duty-bearer, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) also contributed 264.5 million USD to the 2024 Ethiopian Humanitarian Fund (EHF). This year, the EHF has anticipated a requirement of 2 billion USD to respond to multiple crises in various parts of the country. Given the need for humanitarian support, the humanitarian fund in the country is visibly inadequate, and various humanitarian interventions in Ethiopia are being challenged by, among other things, inadequate funding and unfulfilled promises of localization. The USAID suspension is another recent significant blow to the country’s dwindling and inadequate humanitarian funding. The USAID aid suspension has placed the lives of vulnerable communities at risk The USAID funding cut has placed the lives of millions of people in need of humanitarian assistance in peril. The aid was stopped without any back-up, thus exposing vulnerable communities to exceptionally dangerous risks. Beyond the impact on people receiving aid, the decision has resulted in many aid workers being made unemployed. The Ethiopian Ministry of Health terminated 5000 employment contracts due to the USAID aid suspension. These health workers were supporting clinics on HIV-related programmes in various parts of the country. Likewise, even though a significant portion of Ethiopia’s development aid funding now comes from international development banks (World Bank, AfDB, IMF), which come with both punitive interest rates and market reforms, the suspension of USAID affects the country’s foreign currency reserve and flow – further minimizing the agency of Ethiopian policymakers and local organizations. In addition, the suspension of aid affects accountability relations in the humanitarian sector and beyond. Following the announcement of the funding suspension, over 85 percent of Civil Society Organizations suspended their programmes in Ethiopia. These CSOs were implementing programmes ranging from ensuring the right to access justice for displaced communities, advocating for accountability in the humanitarian sector and durable solutions and socio-economic recovery for conflict-affected peoples. The suspension decapitated CSOs operating in complex operational spaces and exacerbated the murky Ethiopian civil society environment. According to one humanitarian worker that we interviewed in Addis Ababa, ‘the suspension suppresses independent voices and shrinks the civic space as it inhibits vibrant CSOs from implementing programmes’. The CSOs that advance diverse perspectives are affected by the USAID suspension and only those that are supported by government will continue to operate in the country. This perspective was also shared by other participants during the interviews conducted by the first author for his PhD research on humanitarian governance in Ethiopia. The devastating impact that the USAID aid cut caused in the first few weeks of the announcement unveiled the fragmentation and fragility of Ethiopian formal humanitarian governance, its excessive reliance on foreign aid and its under-investment in supporting local humanitarian initiatives. Conversely, it allowed the government and the humanitarian actors to revisit and critically reflect on their practices around accountability and localization, as well as build the resilience of local actors to make humanitarian actors more predictable, effective and accountable. The role of local actors in responding to crises Ethiopia’s humanitarian action is noted for its plurality of actors. There are diverse humanitarian actors with their own practices and policies. However, the actors’ interventions vary in mandate, capacity and ability to respond to and cope with emergencies. They possess completely unequal power, leverage and authority, which are dependent on several factors including location, association and who they represent. Beyond targeted and institutionalized humanitarian interventions, humanitarianism by the ordinary citizenry, or vernacular humanitarianism, is a defining feature of Ethiopia’s humanitarian action. Millions of internally displaced persons are living with and supported by the host communities with no meaningful support from international or national formal humanitarian organizations. Ordinary citizens often organize themselves around social media such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram and were able to mobilize millions in support of victims of disasters. For example, ordinary Ethiopians informally organized on social media and did commendable work in averting the devastating consequences of drought in Borena in 2023, supported IDPs displaced from their homes due to political violence around Oromia-Somali borders in 2018 and supported millions of IDPs in Horro Guduru and East Wallagga zones while the institutionalized humanitarians were unable to intervene (during the first phase of the crisis) due to access difficulties. Ethiopian diasporas and business communities also participate in humanitarian action in the country. Apart from these few examples, ordinary Ethiopians are the backbone of the country’s humanitarian efforts and first responders to crises. However, the contributions of local actors remain invisible, are not nurtured and there has been inadequate effort to genuinely strengthen their capacity. The dominant discourse has wrongly portrayed humanitarianism in Ethiopia as a monopoly field of international humanitarian actors belittling the local community’s effort to address their problems. The visibility of localized humanitarianism in Ethiopia has been overshadowed by the increased visibility of the ‘international humanitarian community’s’ response to crises. Likewise, despite the global movement and advocacy for accountability to affected communities, humanitarian practitioners we spoke to in Addis Ababa largely believed that the promises of localization have largely remained unfulfilled. The interviews that we conducted with humanitarian workers and independent observers revealed that humanitarian organizations were primarily preoccupied with service delivery rather than strengthening local capacity to transition to recovery and reconstruction. Thus, to make humanitarian efforts more predictable and effective, humanitarian actors should prioritize local initiatives to make the sector sustainable and least affected by external decisions. The recent policy changes in donor countries, spearheaded by the USAID suspension of foreign assistance, are a wake-up call for the country to strengthen its local humanitarian initiatives and advance and implement the humanitarian reform agenda in national and local contexts. Mobilizing local actors and domestic resources Mobilizing domestic resources can reduce the dependency on foreign countries overseas development and humanitarian aid policies. Local actors play a crucial role in filling the gaps created due to changes in the priorities and policies of donor countries. However, as local initiatives still lack targeted support, external donors finance a significant portion of formal humanitarian action, USAID being the major partner. Yet Ethiopia has recently started some venerable initiatives that could contribute to the country’s self-reliance in the long run. The country started a food sovereignty endeavour, dubbed by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) as a ‘decisive path toward food self-sufficiency’. The initiative prioritizes investing in local innovations in agriculture and technology. The government planned to address food insecurity through funding by state-owned enterprises and large-scale farming coordinated by its national disaster risk management office, the Ministry of Agriculture and relevant regional offices. The country has also been implementing the Green Legacy Initiative to avert the negative impact of climate change. Similarly, the government has commenced other national initiatives, such as the Bounty of the Basket, which have a significant potential to strengthen local resilience and preparedness. The transitional justice and national dialogue mechanisms have also the potential to end or significantly reduce the humanitarian needs emanating from the devastating impacts of conflict or political violence. However, even though these initiatives have the potential, if appropriately implemented and subjected to rigorous accountability mechanisms, to minimize the impacts of climate change and end the need caused by conflict, they may not counterbalance the adverse impacts of the policy change in donor countries in the short term. Conclusion and the way forward Given the high level of need, it is tremendously challenging to respond to the current humanitarian crisis without support from the international community in general and USAID in particular. The theoretical rhetoric that regarded local actors as genuine partners with a meaningful role in leading and funding humanitarian responses has not yet been translated into practice. Affected communities are still considered passive recipients of aid by the majority of international humanitarian actors working in Ethiopia. The current initiatives by the GoE to satisfy humanitarian needs with local capacity are commendable and can change this narrative in the long run. Such initiatives need to show tangible progress on the ground. Ending conflicts with agreements and finding durable solutions for millions of IDPs currently stranded in various IDP shelters are some of the immediate measures that the government can take to relieve the pressure on humanitarian action in the country. Ensuring government efficiency and addressing rampant corruption that divert critical resources from the public are other measures that the government may immediately take to avert further crisis. Furthermore, local CSOs need to reassess their excessive reliance on international funding and devise innovative means to mobilize domestic resources, strengthen local giving and prioritize local innovations. The promises of localization remained unfulfilled. Donors and the INGOs currently operating in the country need to revisit their commitments to localization and hold themselves accountable for failing to honour the grand bargain’s promises. Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Authors:

Alemayehu B. Hordofa is a Ph.D. researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). He obtained his LLM in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Center for Human Rights (ICHR), University of Galway, Ireland. He is currently working on humanitarian governance in Ethiopia focusing on the role of Civil Society Organizations and Crisis-affected People to shape humanitarian governance ‘from below’. His research interests lie in forced displacement, accountability in humanitarian context, localization of humanitarian aid, transitional justice, and the development of CSOs in Ethiopia.

Marga Fekadu Angerasa is a law lecturer at Wolkite University (Wolkite, Ethiopia) with research interest and specialty on human rights, forced displacement and transitional justice. He has an LLM in human rights law from Addis Ababa University (2021). Marga is a member of Ethiopia Humanitarian Observatory and advocates for the advancement of human rights and works with CSOs on human rights issues.    Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.