The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development and the assault on sexual and reproductive rights mark a watershed moment. With the rise in reactionary funding and drastic budget cuts, a coordinated political agenda threatens gender equality and humanitarian principles, with devastating consequences for millions of women, girls and vulnerable minorities.
Over the last two decades, French non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have significantly stepped up the incorporation of gender issues into their strategies and practices. Their counterparts in the Anglosphere, one step ahead, had already integrated transformative methods into this area as early as in the 1990s, embedded in project cycles and at a more structural level. These dynamics have led to considerable advances institutionally and politically, often achieved through the persistent advocacy of civil society, as seen in the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution on “Women, Peace and Security” (2000) and associated national action plans, in gender mainstreaming strategies for funders, in the affirmation of feminist diplomacy and in the development of specific funding for feminist organisations. These developments reflect a real paradigm shift: the sector no longer limits itself to meeting just the basic needs of populations but seeks to address systemic injustices and specific vulnerabilities. This approach paves the way for more far-reaching and lasting changes and establishes gender equality not only as a cross-cutting issue but also as a lever for structural change in international solidarity policies.
However, each step forward is often accompanied by setbacks, whether in the form of legislative restrictions, financial pressures or attacks on organisations or activists. The radical cuts in official development assistance (ODA) and in humanitarian aid, as well as the rise of far-right and anti-rights movements, constitute threats as they significantly restrict international solidarity action, by attacking primarily sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHRs). Yet SRHRs embody fundamental freedoms: the right to have control over one’s own body, to choose if, when and with whom to have sexual relations, to decide whether or not to continue with a pregnancy and to have access to quality information and healthcare. These rights are key to ensuring gender equality and the empowerment of women and the LGBTQIA+ people.[1]LGBTQIA+: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and other sexual and gender minorities [Editor’s note]. Against this background, in what way is the defence and promotion of sexual rights and health an unavoidable humanitarian issue?
Humanitarian NGOs must first and foremost recognise the links between ODA or humanitarian sector budget cuts and the rise of the far right and anti-rights movements. By establishing the disproportionate impact of these cuts on the rights of women and the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as their effects on the quality of aid overall, NGOs have a duty to step up their support for feminist organisations and actions linked to SRHRs insofar as they are a vehicle for overall development.
Budget cuts reflect the rise of a global reactionary agenda
The budget cuts and the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) between January and September 2025 caused an upset of which the scale and brutality shocked the international solidarity sector. Nevertheless, the reduction in ODA funding observed since 2024[2]Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “International aid falls in 2024 for first time in six years, says OECD”, press release, 16 April 2025, … Continue reading is the result of a paradigm shift for countries both giving and receiving aid. Since the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness,[3]OECD, Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, report, 2005, https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2005/03/paris-declaration-on-aid-effectiveness_g1g12949/9789264098084-en.pdf the “traditional” aid paradigm, backed by World Bank and International Monetary Fund investments, has demanded that funder states standardise their respective support according to a national strategy determined and managed by the country receiving aid[4]Bright Simons, “Why the crisis in global aid is bigger than Trump?”, Overseas Development Institute, 19 February 2025, https://odi.org/en/insights/why-the-crisis-in-global-aid-is-bigger-than-trump in the ongoing pursuit of the Millenium Goals and then the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).[5]United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals and beyond to 2015, stemming from the Millennium Declaration, 2000, https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml; The 17 sustainable development … Continue reading
However, funder countries are now taking more “pragmatic” approaches, focused on their economic and strategic benefits, and this applies even to states that have historically defended the “traditional” aid paradigm, most notably the member states of the European Union (EU). According to the European Centre for Development Policy Management, the international aid policy of the EU and its member states is increasingly influenced by external events and crises. It identifies as significant influencing factors: the priority now given to economic and business interests; internal political changes in member states, particularly on immigration issues; a renewed focus on defence goals; affirmed needs and requirements of aid recipient countries (who today have more partnership options); and a detachment from global commitments such as SDGs and the “values agenda”[6]Andrew Sherriff and Pauline Veron, “What is driving change in Europe’s international cooperation agenda? Part 1”, Briefing Note no. 175, ECDPM, January 2024, p. 6, … Continue reading fostering social and democratic progress. This shift away from the “values agenda” promoting diversity, equality and inclusion is heightened by the powerful upswing of anti-rights programmes, in particular those aimed at restricting access to abortion, challenging gender equality or attacking the rights of the LGBTQIA+ people. Since the mid-2010s, several organisations working for SRHRs have systematically documented the funding channels, both public and private, fuelling these transnational conservative movements. As early as in 2017, the European Parliament Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights published key reports[7]Neil Datta, Restoring the Natural Order – An agenda for Europe, European Parliament Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF), April 2018, … Continue reading revealing the scale and the strategies used by these networks, often concealed behind consensual rhetoric in favour of the “traditional family” or “religious freedom”.
“For several years now, there has been a boom in funding for anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-rights movements in general.”
In fact, for several years now, there has been a boom in funding for anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-rights movements in general. In 2009, these organisations received, on average, $20 million per year, and this figure quadrupled in 2018, bringing it to over $80 million annually. Between 2019 and 2023, this funding reached a total of $1.18 billion. Hungary, France, the United Kingdom (UK), Poland and Spain head the list of countries from which this funding originates.[8]These figures are taken from the report by Neil Datta, The Next Wave: How Religious Extremism Is Regaining Power, EPF, September 2025, https://www.epfweb.org/node/1147 These significant sums fuel a global reactionary agenda deployed at all levels – local, national and international – and that aims to permanently erode what has been achieved in rights and gender equality. This growing rallying has already produced tangible political results, such as the Geneva Consensus Declaration (during Donald Trump’s first term in office in 2020), signed by thirty-five states. Though not legally binding, this declaration unites anti-rights governments with a view to unravelling international commitments protecting SRHRs, in particular abortion rights, health and sexual education policies that respect the autonomy of individuals, and the rights of LGBTQIA+ people. Furthermore, as soon as he took office, Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule, also known as the Mexico City policy, blocking all institutional funding of NGOs promoting or providing abortion care services. This policy could be extended to all activities promoting gender equality or diversity, as advocated in the Project 2025, the ideological basis behind the current programme implemented by the American President.[9]Dafydd Townley, “How Project 2025 became the blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term”, The Conversation, 25 April 2025, … Continue reading
By producing precise data, identifying the actors involved and the ways these ideologies are spread, feminist organisations and those working on SRHRs have helped to shed light on this coordinated reactionary onslaught, which has long been underestimated. Their work has helped to alert international institutions and political decision-makers and equip civil society to counter the increasingly structured and transnational narratives opposed to the values underlying international solidarity and its funding.
Women and LGBTQIA+ people, the first victims of budget cuts
The above-mentioned policy orientations have major health and social consequences, disproportionately affecting women and girls. As bilateral American aid represented 40 % of all worldwide family planning,[10]Adam Wexler, Jennifer Kates, Stephanie Oum al., Donor Government Funding for Family Planning in 2023, KFF, 12 December 2023, … Continue reading the withdrawal of nearly 85% of USAID grants constitutes a direct threat to contraceptive care access for 47.6 million women and couples each year, leading the Guttmacher Institute to estimate that there are 17.1 million unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and 34,000 preventable maternal deaths, obstructing and undermining already fragile healthcare systems.[11]Floriane Borel and Samira Damavandi, Six Months In: How the Trump Administration Is Undermining Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Globally, Guttmacher Institute, Policy Analysis, August 2025, … Continue reading As an example, the stop in Belgium and then the planned incineration in France of nearly 10 million contraceptives will deprive 1.4 million women and girls of vital access to contraception in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali.[12]IPPF, Over 1,4 Million Women and Girls in Africa Left Without Contraception as U.S. Orders Destruction of Global Supply, 6 August 2025, … Continue reading
The ending of US (United States) funding for UN agencies vital to SRHRs – the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Women, the Joint UN Programme on Human Immunodeficiency Viruses and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (UNAIDS) – alongside a unilateral withdrawal from the WHO, increases US isolation and weakens the multilateral system. The abrupt ending of funding for health and demographic surveys, a key reference tool for monitoring maternal, child and reproductive health, will inevitably undermine the global architecture of world health and women’s rights, and severely compromise the ability of countries to measure progress towards SDGs and responses to health crises. Indeed, fighting inequality, particularly gender inequality is an integral part of the “leave no-one behind” approach essential to the achievement of SDGs.[13]Frederik Matthys, Wouter Coussement and Gregory De Paepe, More effective development co-operation for leaving no one behind, OECD, 20 September 2023, … Continue reading UN Women has documented extensively, and in detail, the improvement in access to and use of services provided by humanitarian actors, their effectiveness and the general impact of humanitarian programmes when they integrate gender equality goals.
The reduction in funding and the refocusing of it on so-called “vital” humanitarian aid,[14]OCHA, The humanitarian reset, letter from the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, 10 March 2025, https://www.unocha.org/news/humanitarian-reset-10-march-2025 combined with the spread of transactional approaches to ODA, influenced by anti-rights movements, raise fears that quality criteria linked to diversity, inclusion and equality will be abandoned in favour of the number of people receiving aid. Through its research into the implementation of the “leave no one behind” approach, the think tank Overseas Development Institute, via the Humanitarian Policy Group, notes that humanitarian organisations do not always target responses to the most urgent needs since they fail to sufficiently take account of the harmful guidelines and power dynamics in play during crises. It explains that humanitarian organisations are more accustomed to thinking of inclusion at the level of individuals or small groups and less on a more political, macro scale, enabling them to consider inclusion in terms of access to rights and not just of responding to needs. However, the principle of impartiality presupposes equal access to rights, which is itself affected by factors of discrimination and exclusion.[15]Olivier Lough, Véronique Barbelet and Sarah Njeri, “Inclusion and exclusion in humanitarian action: findings from a three-year study”, Humanitarian Policy Group report, ODI, July 2022, p. 8, … Continue reading So, to ensure that international aid is effective and meets the most pressing needs, following humanitarian principles, it is crucial to maintain and increasingly take account of criteria related to the specific vulnerabilities of the people receiving this aid, including gender inequalities.
The role of independent organisations from civil society in defending and advancing women’s health and rights
By providing often inaccessible key services and reaching the most marginalised communities, civil society organisations (CSOs), particularly those run by women, are invaluable for the defence of women’s rights and health. Yet, according to the UN, already in June 2025, 62% of women’s organisations had had to suspend certain activities and nearly half of those on the ground in crisis areas were at risk of closing within the following six months.[16]UN Women, Humanitarian funding cuts threaten women’s rights: What’s at stake and how to help, 13 May 2025, … Continue reading
Between 2021 and 2022, organisations defending women’s rights received only 0.9% of humanitarian aid worldwide: a total of 142 million dollars. If funding continues to dry up, the consequences will be devastating for the millions of women and families who depend on their services that are inaccessible elsewhere. This fragility is compounded by the reluctance of certain CSOs to engage in activities linked to SRHRs because of their dependence on institutional funding affected by anti-rights policy choices.
This question also arises in the case of large international NGOs: will they choose to safeguard budgets, the jobs of gender advisors, and services in contraception, abortion and the fight against gender-based violence? Or, on the contrary, will they choose to make cuts in these sectors deemed “sensitive”? Collective vigilance and introspection are required to avoid women’s rights and health once again being relegated to the back burner and international aid ending up by reinforcing the inequalities it is supposed to be fighting. Depriving feminist CSOs working with marginalised populations with social justice in mind will lead to their demise, leaving a political and social vacuum that risks being filled by dominant players. At best, these dominant players will not focus on reducing existing inequalities. At worst, they will increase these inequalities and further restrict spaces of freedom. In addition to the systemic weakening of these associations, healthcare professionals and defenders of SRHRs are regularly targeted, threatened, criminalised or silenced. So, defending SRHRs means resisting an authoritarian logic in the control of bodies, sexualities and identities, and standing up to repressive excesses that threaten democratic societies and the principle of solidarity.
“There is an urgent need for NGOs in international solidarity to coordinate and swing into action with all progressive players.”
In light of the growing dangers facing SRHRs and how essential they are for gender equality and sustainable development in general, there is an urgent need for NGOs in international solidarity to coordinate and swing into action with all progressive players. In particular, this involves promoting funding schemes that are accessible to local or national feminist CSOs, backed by mechanisms for coordinating international aid and integrating SRHRs in humanitarian responses and broader movements for social justice, gender equality and the defence of human rights, a prerequisite for egalitarian societies.
NGOs must look closely at who is funding their action, and accept that funders, whether public or private, must be both partners and advocacy targets for strategic international solidarity action. At stake is not just the health and rights of millions of women and gender minorities but also the future of democratic societies based on equality, freedom and justice. Preserving what has been achieved for future generations is an imperative we cannot ignore.
An additional source accessed in writing this article: Susheela Singh, Gilda Sedgh, Elizabeth A. Sully et al.,“Protecting global sexual and reproductive health and rights in the face of retrograde US policies and positions”, The Lancet, volume 405, issue 10490, pp. 1641-1716, 10 May 2025, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)00618-X/abstract
Translated from the French by Fay Guerry
Picture credit : © Lys Arango pour Action contre la Faim
