The United States cut its foreign aid by billions of dollars for the first time in 2025, and other major donors are following suit.
Published July 10, 2026
Global aid cuts have left at least one million women and girls without life-saving assistance in the past 18 months, according to a new United Nations study.
A UN Women report released on Friday said that although organizations serving women and girls have seen an increase in demand for their services over the past year, 90% say they have run out of funding and are unable to meet needs on the ground.
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The United States was previously the world’s largest aid donor. But President Donald Trump’s administration cut foreign aid by billions of dollars when it returned to power in January 2025.
With the dissolution of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s foreign aid has fallen by more than 50%, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Other major contributors to global aid, such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, have similarly cut their contributions, primarily due to domestic burdens and pressures to increase defense spending.
“Women’s organizations at risk of closure are on the front lines of the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis,” Sophia Kohltorp, head of humanitarian work at UN Women, said in a statement.
“Every dollar taken from women’s organizations is a dollar taken from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, displaced mothers, girls forced out of school, and communities struggling to survive,” she added.
A UN report surveyed 855 women’s organizations in 52 vulnerable countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti and Afghanistan, and found that 40% face temporary or permanent closure within the next year due to lack of funding.
60% said they have reached fewer women and girls since January last year, despite increased need.
Half of the organizations surveyed said they had had to put people on waiting lists or turn women and girls away. Almost all said the women they serve are becoming poorer and girls are dropping out of school.
Despite conflict-related sexual violence doubling in the past year, 62 percent of organizations report a lack of safe spaces and a reduction in gender-based violence services.
