Dear Friends of MFAN,
As we close out 2025 – a very difficult year filled with upheaval within the international development space – I want to thank you for your continued support of MFAN's mission.
The past year has brought unprecedented changes to the U.S. international assistance landscape. The termination of scores of programs, dismantling of USAID, staffing reductions at the DFC, MCC, and the State Department, and consolidation of many international assistance functions into State is fundamentally reshaping how America engages with development and humanitarian challenges globally. In addition to adversely impacting the well-being of millions of people overseas, it has led to difficult choices closer to home – including for many of our members who have been forced to institute widespread layoffs.
Amidst these challenges, your support has allowed MFAN to sustain our important advocacy work to ensure that impactful U.S. international assistance will continue and opportunities for modernization and reform are fully leveraged.
MFAN as Your Expert Advocacy Partner
As the State Department assumes its expanded role, critical questions about implementation capacity, strategic planning, and operational effectiveness must be addressed. The transition has highlighted gaps in areas where decades of USAID institutional knowledge and specialized capacity are now absent. Recognizing the urgency of filling these gaps, MFAN has stepped in with timely, evidence-based analysis and practical recommendations to policymakers on Capitol Hill and in the Administration, bringing to bear the deep expertise of our members. These include a groundbreaking report early this year – the community’s first – on the State Department-USAID reorg; our bipartisan blueprint for achieving broad ideological agreement on key aid effectiveness principles; a white paper on the State Department’s lack of operational readiness and the core functions needed to manage U.S. international development and humanitarian assistance; and a detailed analysis and statement on the Administration's Global Health Strategy. We also have launched a new guest blog series that delves deeper into the importance of a dozen core functions at the State Department, including blogs on transparency and high level strategic planning efforts to date.
Our work with policymakers on Capitol Hill has been a major focus this year. Our congressional staff briefings on the 90-day review and stop work orders, the dismantling of USAID and proposal to merge functions into the State Department, and the inefficiencies and waste of aid program pauses and terminations served as a critical source of first-hand information for congressional staff during a time of volatility and rapid change. Our briefings, hosted in conjunction with the Congressional Caucus on Effective Foreign Assistance, have drawn very strong attendance and reaffirmed MFAN as a trusted source of information and expertise within this unpredictable policy environment.
This year we also worked with Congress on the reauthorization of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). We put forward comprehensive recommendations to strengthen the agency’s capacity, preserve its commitment to development, and improve the transparency of its operations – recommendations that shaped the final bipartisan reauthorization package passed by Congress this week, as reflected in MFAN’s press release this week.
Looking Ahead to 2026
As we look ahead to 2026, MFAN sees opportunities to advance reforms that strengthen effectiveness, increase accountability, and catalyze development impacts and innovations. MFAN will continue serving as a trusted source of analysis and practical recommendations, working across the political spectrum to advance a visionary policy agenda.
Your expertise, partnership, and advocacy make MFAN's work possible. We are grateful to our funders for your sustained support, to our members for your thought leadership and commitment to reform, and to our partners across government, civil society, and the private sector who share our vision. We are excited to welcome new MFAN members Mathematica, Pact, and IREX, and thank our existing members for their continued support.
As we enter the new year, I encourage you to stay connected with MFAN's work through our website at modernizeaid.net, follow us on LinkedIn, and subscribe to our mailing list for regular updates on policy developments and coalition activities.
Thank you for your partnership and commitment to effective foreign assistance. On behalf of the entire MFAN team and our members, I wish you a peaceful holiday season and a productive year ahead.
Tod Preston
Executive Director
Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
