Thanks for this Nick! I always appreciate your posts on forum! I haven’t listened to the full podcast episode and don’t have expertise in TSUs, but a few things that stood out to me/additional context on the timing of the USAID cuts:
GiveWell mentioned that governments were specifically requesting this kind of support, which makes me more inclined to believe these TSUs will fill temporary gaps that were “outsourced” in a way from MoHs to USAID/other funders over the years or to address vulnerabilities that are rapidly appearing… so it could be more of a triage situation than setting even a short/medium term strategy for governments.[1]
I share the sentiment of “not another dashboard!!” but I’m wondering if the way that USAID pulled the plug so quickly has made it so that governments have little visibility into their own programs and need to rapidly (re)build this capacity so they can reprogram funds accordingly—but also so they can go to other bilateral donors and apply for emergency funds that are/may become available through multilateral funders like the Global Fund or World Bank/IDA.
Despite claims to the contrary by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others, the US government is moving to significantly reduce USAID’s global health work[2] In addition, nearly all USAID staff will be terminated on July 1 (some foreign service officers at post and administrative staff in DC will remain until September 1 to wind down other operations).
I hope others with more knowledge about this will comment and thanks again for keeping global health on the front page :)
I have a draft post about the FY26 President’s Budget Request, proposed $900m rescissions to FY25 funds, and impending “pocket rescission” of FY24 funds (~$10 billion) and how these all interact, but haven’t gotten around to finalizing.
Thanks for this Nick! I always appreciate your posts on forum! I haven’t listened to the full podcast episode and don’t have expertise in TSUs, but a few things that stood out to me/additional context on the timing of the USAID cuts:
GiveWell mentioned that governments were specifically requesting this kind of support, which makes me more inclined to believe these TSUs will fill temporary gaps that were “outsourced” in a way from MoHs to USAID/other funders over the years or to address vulnerabilities that are rapidly appearing… so it could be more of a triage situation than setting even a short/medium term strategy for governments.[1]
I share the sentiment of “not another dashboard!!” but I’m wondering if the way that USAID pulled the plug so quickly has made it so that governments have little visibility into their own programs and need to rapidly (re)build this capacity so they can reprogram funds accordingly—but also so they can go to other bilateral donors and apply for emergency funds that are/may become available through multilateral funders like the Global Fund or World Bank/IDA.
Despite claims to the contrary by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others, the US government is moving to significantly reduce USAID’s global health work[2] In addition, nearly all USAID staff will be terminated on July 1 (some foreign service officers at post and administrative staff in DC will remain until September 1 to wind down other operations).
I hope others with more knowledge about this will comment and thanks again for keeping global health on the front page :)
One really bad example that comes to mind is when the Kenya MoH temporary lost access health data stored in the Electronic Medical Records (Kenya EMR) system—because it was physically hosted on the servers of a USAID contractor under stop work order. https://www.data4sdgs.org/blog/data-crisis-following-usaids-withdrawal-opportunities-reimagine-data-systems
I have a draft post about the FY26 President’s Budget Request, proposed $900m rescissions to FY25 funds, and impending “pocket rescission” of FY24 funds (~$10 billion) and how these all interact, but haven’t gotten around to finalizing.