# United States Agency for International Development **USAID** — the principal U.S. government agency for foreign development and humanitarian assistance, established in 1961. It administered global health (including PEPFAR-linked programs), food aid, disaster relief, democracy promotion, and development funding across the world. In early 2025 USAID became the first and highest-profile target of [[DOGE]]'s government-cutting drive: most staff were placed on leave or terminated, programs were frozen, and the agency's functions were largely folded into the [[Department of State]]. The [[Rescissions Act of 2025]] then **codified ~$7.9B in foreign-aid cuts**, much of it USAID accounts, converting the administrative freeze into permanent statutory cancellation. ## The mortality estimate The measurable consequence is being tracked outside government. **Brooke Nichols**, an infectious-disease modeler and health economist at Boston University, maintains an **Impact Counter** projecting deaths associated with the withdrawal of U.S. foreign aid from March 2025. Reporting by NPR on **17 July 2026** put the running estimate at **more than 700,000 deaths in the first year, of which more than 500,000 were children**, concentrated in low- and middle-income countries and overwhelmingly in sub-Saharan Africa. Two cautions belong with that number. It is a **modeled projection**, not a death-registry count — it estimates deaths attributable to interrupted treatment, prophylaxis, nutrition and vector-control programs rather than counting certificates. And it has moved sharply as the interruption has lengthened: earlier versions of the same tracker were cited at roughly 330,000 in July 2025 and 367,000 later that year. The administration's public position, as reported in the same NPR piece, has been that no children died as a result of the cuts. The dismantling was carried out under [[DOGE]] and defended in those terms. The agency's abolition is the largest single item in the [[DOGE]] record, and the largest gap between what was claimed as savings and what the [[Rescissions Act of 2025]] actually cancelled. *Stub — expand with founding/Cold War history, the 2025 dismantlement timeline, and the humanitarian-impact debate.* ## Related - [[DOGE]] · [[Rescissions Act of 2025]] · [[Department of State]] · [[Budget Hub]]