Yes, we should all get involved, thank you for your work on PEPFAR!
On paper, the waiver should cover about half of PEPFAR programming. In practice, I’m not even sure that much will be able to restart because of the drastic reduction in the USAID workforce that this Stop-Work Order (and other efforts by The Department of State/F Bureau) have caused.
On a webinar on Saturday Dr. Atul Gawande (former Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID) he said that the emergency waiver is not enough because the agency has been decimated—turning it back on with a fraction of the staff and much of the expertise removed will not work. USAID and implementing partners have lost people and capacity and are losing it by the day.
PEPFAR is technically a State Department program—but most of the funds are transferred and programmed through other agencies. In the past week, ~70-80% of staff at the Global Health Bureau (GHB) and Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) have been fired or put on leave. One USAID official quoted in Devex on 2/3: “The waivers from Secretary of State Rubio for emergency food aid and other urgent assistance are a smokescreen and farce if there is no one to make the awards happen”
Yes, we should all get involved, thank you for your work on PEPFAR!
On paper, the waiver should cover about half of PEPFAR programming. In practice, I’m not even sure that much will be able to restart because of the drastic reduction in the USAID workforce that this Stop-Work Order (and other efforts by The Department of State/F Bureau) have caused.
On a webinar on Saturday Dr. Atul Gawande (former Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID) he said that the emergency waiver is not enough because the agency has been decimated—turning it back on with a fraction of the staff and much of the expertise removed will not work. USAID and implementing partners have lost people and capacity and are losing it by the day.
PEPFAR is technically a State Department program—but most of the funds are transferred and programmed through other agencies. In the past week, ~70-80% of staff at the Global Health Bureau (GHB) and Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) have been fired or put on leave. One USAID official quoted in Devex on 2/3: “The waivers from Secretary of State Rubio for emergency food aid and other urgent assistance are a smokescreen and farce if there is no one to make the awards happen”