The headline figure revealed in the "skinny budget" was 28.4 percent cuts to the State Department, USAID and international programs. As CGD’s director of US Development Policy Initiative Scott Morris wrote recently, and as he tells me in this edition of the CGD Podcast, when other areas of spending directly relevant to development are considered, the actual level of cuts “goes north of 30 percent.”
What do the cuts mean for the people most affected and for America’s role as a global development leader? That’s the subject of this edition of the CGD Podcast.
Major global health programs, such as PEPFAR (on HIV/AIDS) and US contributions to the vaccination alliance GAVI, appear to be safe. Yet CGD senior fellow Amanda Glassman worries about other areas, including family planning, which she wrote about after the administration issued an executive order cutting funding for foreign family planning services, and the US role in ensuring global health security.
"The budget did have a callout for an emergency response fund in case of outbreaks, but I understand that to be just for domestic use," she tells me. "Really we have to think about fighting disease over there so it doesn’t come here. This is a global undertaking."
Watch the clip below to hear Morris and Glassman's thoughts on alternative ways to maximize efficiency and yield budget savings:
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CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise.
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