After the Trump administration closed the organisation down, a group of former staff secured new funding for almost 80 programmes, benefiting an estimated 40 million people
They call themselves the “lifeboat crew”. After losing their jobs abruptly when the Trump administration slashed US overseas aid earlier this year, a group of dedicated workers decided to launch their own rescue package.
Refusing to “wallow in misery”, Rob Rosenbaum, a former USAID economist, and a group of like-minded former agency staff began efforts to save some of the vital programmes that faced closure after the cuts.
Now, almost 80 projects have been saved by a matchmaking service run by Rosenbaum and other former USAID staff, that has found them $110m (£82m) of new funding. The team behind the Project Resource Optimization(Pro) initiative estimates it will benefit 40 million people, including many children under five.
After USAID closed, spending was frozen, thousands of employees were laid off, and projects worldwide either came to a shuddering halt or were left limping towards what Rosenbaum terms “drop-dead dates”. MORE