FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 15, 2025
MFAN Situation Report: "Local Actors - Critical for Effective International Aid, Hardest Hit by Funding Cuts"
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) released today a new Situation Report, "Local Actors: Critical for the Future of Effective International Aid, Hardest Hit by the Crisis." This report highlights the severe impacts of the recent U.S. foreign assistance cuts on local and national organizations that were direct and sub-direct partners of the U.S. government running health, education, food security, and other projects, serving millions around the world.
Recent U.S. foreign aid program terminations and funding cuts have led to massive staff layoffs and threaten to shutter many vital local civil society organizations overseas that have grown in number and capacity over the past decade. The report features two case studies:
The report includes recommendations for the Administration and Congress, including the provision of immediate relief and recovery support to local actors, including back payments.
"Local actors are essential for effective development and humanitarian response. They are trusted U.S. partners that are on the front lines working with communities everywhere," said Bill O’Keefe, Executive Vice President at Catholic Relief Services. “Without them, in the short run, we will see devastating impacts for the most vulnerable people around the world. In the long run, we will lose those locally based partners capable of addressing increasing violence, poverty, and natural disasters.”
O’Keefe added, “Despite our recent progress towards ending the need for U.S. foreign aid, these cuts to local partners are creating the conditions for crises to erupt everywhere, leaving us all less safe and less prosperous.”
MFAN has long emphasized the critical role local actors - national and local government, local civil society organizations, and local private sector - play in humanitarian response and development programming. Local actors understand the political, economic, and social context, and are often best placed to identify and solve development challenges; can reach the widest range of communities and often have the trust of local people. Locally led development is vital to more impactful and sustainable development outcomes – and to help countries transition from foreign assistance.
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About MFAN:
The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN) is a bipartisan coalition of international development practitioners, policy advocates, and experts committed to making U.S. foreign assistance more effective, accountable, and results-driven.
For media inquiries, please reach out to Tod Preston, MFAN Executive Director, at Tod.Preston@modernizeaid.net
