The former administrator of the American International Development Agency (USAID) claims that serious financing cuts for agencies can lead to more cases of diseases such as paralytic polio and malaria.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday CBC Rosemary Barton LiveIN Samantha Power described the consequences of the Trump administration decision Live to financing the agency.
“There are really no words”, Power, who was the head of the agency during Biden administration, told Rosemary Barton's chief political correspondent.
“Estimates now amount to 200,000 cases of paralytic polio,” she said about the influence of the canceled agreements of the USAID administration.
“Malaria is increasing, probably up to 166,000 deaths a year.”
USAID manages financing, provided by the United States, as well as international partners, including Canada, for development projects around the world.
About 10,000 contracts with USAID have been completed Last week, according to letters sent to non -governmental organizations. This is part of the unprecedented reduction of the federal government by the Department of Government Elon Musk.
Power says that cuts will also affect girls' education around the world.
“Many millions of girls will not be at school, because USAID financing for these programs has been solved,” she said.
Before running USAID in 2021–2025, Power served as an UN US ambassador in the years 2013–2017 under former president Barack Obama.
“The United States government is now acting as if we lived in such a magnificent insulation, as if we were cut off from the rest of the world, as if there was no air travel in which the virus can spread to the USA,” Power said.
“(Administration is) acting as if we were creating all our manufactured products here, all parts come from here … as if nothing bad ever happened for the United States in which we need friends.”
The long American alliances are worried are now “on the edge.”
USAID employees who lost their jobs received 15-minute intervals to clean their desks on Thursday among the huge removal of a widely successful program. Employees were welcomed by the cheers of fans who left the building for the last time.
USAID was founded in 1961 by former President John F. Kennedy and has long been bilateral support.
According to the Congressional Research Congression Service, before cuts the agency employed about 10,000 people with about two -thirds serving abroad. In 2023, the last year for which the data is available, USAID managed over $ 40 billion and assisted about 130 countries.
UN spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said that many of the affected programs are in the fragile countries that are highly dependent on American help in order to support healthcare systems and nutrition programs. Dujarric said that other issues, such as the fight against terrorism, trafficking in human and drugs, and helping migrants will also suffer as a result of cuts.
Power says that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“It seems that there is no sense of remorse, any sense of concern for the human consequences of these actions,” she said.