A top Zimbabwe malaria research center killed by USAID closure, resurrected by UMC

MUTARE, ZIMBABWE — Insectary assistants collect the specimens by sucking into a straw-like pump. But they don’t mistakenly swallow any, joked senior insectary assistant Petro Kawadza during a demonstration. It’s part of the critical service a malaria research center at Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe provides to the whole nation. This collection of hundreds of … [Read more…]

Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.

On the one-month anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, a group of his appointed aides gathered to celebrate. For four weeks, they had been working overtime to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, freezing thousands of programs, including ones that provided food, water and medicine around the world. They’d culled USAID’s … [Read more…]

What I Saw at a Maternity Ward in Kenya After the U.S. Cut Off Food and Foreign Aid

In August, I traveled to Kakuma, Kenya, to try to understand what happened when the U.S. cut off food to the world’s third-largest refugee camp. Soon after President Donald Trump froze foreign aid on his first day in office, my colleague Brett Murphy and I began hearing from government experts. We learned that despite explicit … [Read more…]

Suspension of USAID Letters of Credit

FROM USAID December 15, 2025 Dear USAID Implementing Partners,  As the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to finish closing the agency, USAID is taking additional immediate and decisive action to safeguard taxpayer funds and enhance financial oversight across its assistance portfolio. Effective immediately, USAID suspends all payments through Letters of Credit (LOCs) for … [Read more…]

Saving lives with fewer dollars

Givewell is a nonprofit organization that gives money to “save or improve the most lives per dollar.” Part of their whole thing is a rigorous research process with copious and specific datapoints. So, in the chaotic wake of USAID’s gutting, they scrambled to figure out if they could fund the kind of projects USAID used … [Read more…]

JOB OFFER – Technical Advisor, Data.FI (Francophone)

Palladium is currently seeking a French speaking US based Technical Advisor (TA) to support implementation of the Translating Data for Implementation (Data.FI) award in Francophone Africa (DRC, Niger, Core d’Ivoire, Burundi).  Data.FI is a global project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the State Department. Data.FI partners with PEPFAR … [Read more…]