Since February 2025, USAID contractors have laid off thousands of employees in Washington, D.C.

Organizations like Save the Children, IREX, Chemonics, FHI 360, Population Services International, DAI Global, Abt Global, and the American Institutes for Research (AIR), all share a common thread: they used to work closely with USAID to support foreign aid by executing USAID-funded projects around the globe. With the sudden dismantling of USAID, these companies have … [Read more…]

Samantha Power, the former USAID administrator who laid the groundwork for the agency’s dismantling, is returning to Harvard with a joint faculty appointment at the Kennedy School and the Law School

May 16, 2025 Cambridge, Mass.—On June 1, Samantha Power will return to Harvard Kennedy School as the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy and to Harvard Law School as the William D. Zabel ’61 Professor of Practice in Human Rights. Power, who recently served in the Biden administration as … [Read more…]

Former Contractor of USAID-Funded Program Extradited to the United States, Convicted and Sentenced for Conspiracy to Obtain Grant Money Through Fraud

WASHINGTON— Stephen Paul Edmund Sutton, 53, a United Kingdom citizen, pleaded guilty and was sentenced today for his participation in a fraud scheme, perpetrated when he was employed by a  contracting firm that implemented a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded (USAID) power distribution program (PDP) in Pakistan, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and Acting … [Read more…]

State Department refugee office to assume USAID’s disaster aid role, says cable

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) – The State Department office that handles refugee issues and works to cut illegal migration will lead the U.S. response to overseas disasters, according to excerpts from an internal department cable, a role for which experts say it lacks the knowhow and personnel. The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, known … [Read more…]

Institute of Peace reclaims its headquarters after court win over Musk’s cost-cutting team

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Institute of Peace retook control of its headquarters Wednesday, two days after a federal judge said the firing of its board and employees by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was illegal. The institute’s acting president, George Moose, entered the organization’s headquarters with private security and the institute’s outside attorney … [Read more…]

‘We have to try lifting ourselves’: USAID workers fired months ago are still scrambling for jobs

They were among the first of the federal employees to lose their jobs, and months later, laid off workers for the U.S. Agency for International Development are still struggling to regain their footing. Wayan Vota, who spent decades improving technology across developing countries, created a Substack site to help his former colleagues search for new … [Read more…]

Zimbabwean arrested in U.S. for defrauding USAID project

A Zimbabwean national, Ruth Chisina Mufute, has been arrested by special agents from the U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in connection with a nearly decade-long scheme that allegedly defrauded a USAID-funded project of approximately $240,000. Mufute, a former … [Read more…]