For former USAID workers, losing a job is not just about losing a paycheck.
Also in today’s edition: Creating jobs is the World Bank president’s calling card, and the Trump administration unsurprisingly skips Bonn climate talks.
+ Tomorrow, June 18, as part of our Road to Sevilla series, we’ll host a Devex Pro briefing with Leslie Maasdorp, the CEO of British International Investment, on the role of DFIs in effectively bridging the finance gap, as we head into the Financing for Development conference in two weeks’ time. Register now to join us.
Multilayered grief
It’s never easy to lose a job, but for the thousands of USAID workers who so swiftly and shockingly found themselves kicked out of work, it wasn’t just about them, but about being forced to abandon the people they had been trying to help, compounding the trauma.
Dr. Abir Aldhalimi, a clinical psychologist and former senior mental health and inclusive development USAID adviser through Greenleaf Integrative, says many current and former staff are experiencing a layered emotional reaction, especially because development and humanitarian work “is so mission driven.”
Among those layers, she says, is a sense of organizational betrayal.
“When you’ve dedicated your career to a federal job … and you are in it because you care about the work that you do [and] all being gone within a span of a couple of days, and then you have to pick up the pieces of your life, that is a huge betrayal,” she says, adding that “there are real mental health consequences to feeling like the organization you gave so much to ... is now harming you.”
Aldhalimi says she sees many federal employees in survival mode — heightened anxiety, anger, and logistical urgency. In this stage, people are mostly not seeking mental health support but trying to regain a sense of safety and control. “They’re less likely to actually reach out to therapy … because when you’re in survival mode, you’re not trying to unpack all of your feelings.”
That also applies to employees who still have a job. “Initially, it came across really COVID-like … everything was crazy. People were literally dying as a result of program suspensions,” says a West Africa-based country director who asked to remain anonymous.
“Grants were rescinded, and then they were cancelled, and then the cancellations were rescinded, and [it] just keeps going,” says the country director, who has already had to cut half their team and is preparing for additional restructuring. “No one really knows how long they're gonna have a job, how long things will last, what's coming next.”
Read: The emotional fallout of mass USAID and NGO layoffs
ICYMI: One aid worker’s fight to honor USAID’s legacy
The World Bank’s job: jobs
World Bank President Ajay Banga rarely misses an opportunity to hammer home the message that creating jobs is a primary mission of the anti-poverty lender, because he says that’s the surest way to alleviate poverty.
He talks about it frequently, and just as frequently uses familiar talking points to make his case. His appearance last week at the Council on Foreign Relations was no exception.
“The best way to put a nail in the coffin of poverty is to give a person a job. Because poverty is both a state of mind and a state of being, and a job alleviates both,” he said.
Banga also whips out familiar statistics, though that doesn’t make them any less stark: In the next 12 to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people in emerging markets will be looking for a job, but only around 400 million places will be available.
Banga said that the gap of 800 million jobs “is not a demographic dividend. You have a time bomb ticking in the next 12 to 15 years, because if you're worried about illegal migration right now, just wait. If you're worried about military coups right now, just wait. If you're worried about … people not being able to get access to being productively involved in society, just wait.”
The bank president also leans on statistics to make a case for why the lender is a smart investment — no doubt with a certain skeptical U.S. administration in mind.
“You can put money to work bilaterally, and that's $1 for $1, or you can give me the money and if it goes to IBRD or IFC, it's $10 for $1 because we have a triple A rating, which allows us to leverage up handsomely at a good price with good terms,” Banga said, referring to the bank’s main lending arm, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and its private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation.
“So the total paid-in capital of IBRD … is $24 billion over 80 years,” he said, noting that 17%, or $3.6 billion, of that has come from the U.S. “Over the same 80 years, IBRD has lent out $1.4 trillion and wait for this — for you bankers, listen to this — what is the nonrepayment on those loans? Essentially nothing,” he said, estimating the figure to be $2 billion owed by Belarus and Zimbabwe. “On something like a trillion and a half, if you have $2 billion in nonaccruals, that's a nice place to be.”
ICYMI: The World Bank is focused on jobs. What does that mean?
+ Devex Pro members can explore our data analysis of the World Bank’s current $38.9 billion portfolio to map out its sectoral and regional priorities and see how much is earmarked for job creation and employability.
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Adieu Achim
Yesterday was Achim Steiner’s last day as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Before leaving, he penned a Devex opinion piece on why the current wave of aid cuts must not endanger grassroots innovation.
“When we think of innovation, minds often turn to Silicon Valley’s gleaming campuses and boardrooms, cutting-edge apps, and billion-dollar startups. But across the globe, grassroots innovators are quietly revolutionizing their communities, responding to challenges with groundbreaking solutions,” he writes.
“They are turning plastic waste into low-cost housing materials or exploring the genetic makeup of mushrooms to boost food security, and much more. In a world of 8 billion people, the next Steve Jobs could just as easily emerge from a vibrant city market or a classroom in Kenya, Brazil, or the Philippines as from Silicon Valley.”
But innovation needs to be nurtured, he adds, citing UNDP’s Accelerator Labs Network, which has expanded to 113 countries and catalogued more than 6,500 grassroots solutions.
“Transformative ideas often emerge from the world’s toughest environments,” he writes. “While government policy is essential, it’s often the entrepreneur, the grassroots inventor, or the community itself that creates the first crack in the system — the lightbulb moment that sparks lasting change.”
Opinion: Why grassroots innovation must survive aid cuts
🎧 ICYMI: UNDP's Achim Steiner on the 'chronic erosion' of development
Cold shoulder
Given the Trump administration’s refusal to participate in almost anything that hints of climate change, it’s perhaps not shocking that the U.S. is a no-show at the ongoing climate meetings in Bonn, Germany, an important marker on the road to the 30th U.N. Climate Change Conference in Brazil later this year.
This will be the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the Bonn climate talks that the U.S. will not attend, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz writes.
But is that really a bad thing for the discussions?
“The US has been a laggard in the negotiations, its absence could actually provide opportunity for others to step up, and for the climate process, there could be more progress in the negotiations,” says Mariana Paoli of Christian Aid. “The international climate regime cannot be dependent on whoever occupies the White House every 4 years.”
Read: The US is a no-show at Bonn climate negotiations
ICYMI: Before COP30 takes the spotlight, Bonn sets the stage
+ Are you at the climate talks in Bonn and would like to say hi? Drop Jesse a line via jesse.chaselubitz@devex.com.
In other news
The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli troops killed at least 34 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution centers in Rafah yesterday, marking the deadliest day since the launch of the Israeli- and U.S.-backed food aid system. [AP]
The world’s 65 largest banks increased their fossil fuel financing by about $162 billion in 2024 — reaching a total of $869 billion — marking a sharp reversal of prior cutbacks and undermining their climate commitments. [Financial Times]
Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee conservation project in western Tanzania is among those hit by USAID funding cuts. [The Guardian]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
