Farhat Mantoo
In a remote health facility in Afghanistan, a young mother clutches her newborn, desperately waiting for the care she and her child so urgently need. But the clinic’s doors may soon close. Like hundreds of other health centers across Afghanistan, this facility is caught in the fallout of abrupt U.S. foreign aid cuts. For this mother, and millions like her in crisis-affected regions, the consequences are immediate and tragic — losing access to essential care at the very moment it is needed most.
In Afghanistan, several international NGOs have been forced to suspend critical health services, from maternal care to tuberculosis (TB) treatment, due to the abrupt termination of U.S.-funded programs. Therapeutic feeding centers in provinces like Badakhshan and Kabul have shut down, leaving malnourished children without care. Key services such as TB treatment, maternal health, mental health, mobile clinics, and vaccination programs have been suspended in multiple provinces, leading to reduced patient care, increased referrals to private (often unaffordable) facilities, and gaps in disease surveillance.
This is not an isolated story. Over the past 100 days, we have witnessed a growing, human-made disaster. The abrupt termination of U.S. foreign aid is dismantling critical health and humanitarian services across the globe, as the United States alone accounted for nearly 40 percent of global humanitarian funding.