A Year of Harms: The Impact of US Foreign Aid Cuts on Women and Girls in Humanitarian Crises

A humanitarian crisis-- where life has been upset by natural disaster, conflict, or forced displacement-- can disproportionately impact women and girls. Women and girls, at disproportionate risk for gender-based violence, maternal health complications, and barriers to accessing aid, have different requirements in these settings. Julianne Deitch, Associate Director of Research at the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), looks back with us on this last year’s foreign aid cuts and talks to us about the substantial impacts on women and girls in crisis.

Before 2025, the U.S. was one of the largest donors to humanitarian aid globally, with aid hovering at 13 billion dollars annually to address immediate needs for population in crises. Still, humanitarian aid made up less than 0.1% of the gross national income. In January 2025, the Trump administration froze all U.S. foreign aid and dismantled U.S. foreign assistance infrastructure (including closing USAID). Over the last year, WRC collected concrete evidence from over 32 countries. They found that women and girls in humanitarian crises: 1) have lost access to necessary health care (maternal health, sexual and reproductive health care, antiviral drugs, and more); 2) are less safe from gender-based violence; and 3) have lost access to women-led, targeted, trusted, local support. Increased funding, advancing the life-saving principle of gender-specific humanitarian aid, supporting local, women-led organizations, and holding governments accountable are all recommendations for addressing this reality.

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

Women’s Refugee Commission on Instagram
Women’s Refugee Commission on Facebook
A Year of Harms: The Impact of US Foreign Aid Cuts on Women and Girls in Humanitarian Crises
A Year of Harms: The Global Impact of Humanitarian Funding Cuts on Women and Girls [webinar]
The Global Gag Rule is Once Again Expanded, Maximizing Harm
A Cut Too Deep: US Foreign Aid Withdrawals and the Collapse of Protection for Women and Girls in Honduras

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Hi, rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, y'all, I am recording this early because it's a holiday weekend for me. So, I have a three-day weekend. So, I'm recording this on Thursday. So, I am very much looking forward to having a long weekend this weekend. But it's one of those that keeps sneaking up on me and I keep forgetting it's happening. So, for some reason I had it in my head that it was next week that we had Monday off, not this week. So, I have not made any plans or given it any thought and it would come up during meetings like, oh, remember we're off Monday, and so it was always a surprise every time. So, I haven't made any plans, which I'm kind of looking forward to. I think I'm going to opt for a cozy weekend. I told y'all I've been, like, really falling off on my baking and had just restarted doing some recently, but I've been doing really easy things, whether that's muffins or something like that. I haven't done anything more complicated. So, I think this weekend I'm gonna try to make some bread. I haven't made bread in a long time, like since I was home for the holidays. I did a bunch of bread baking then, but I haven't done any since I've been back in DC. So, maybe I'll make a loaf of bread, and I also have a scone recipe I want to try out, so I want to make that. And then I want to do some reading and have just like a kind of a cozy weekend inside. I don't know what else I'll do. I have things I need to do around my place, like laundry and some cleaning and stuff, which is nowhere near as exciting as going out and doing fun things, but also needs to be done. So, it may just be a cozy holiday weekend, which I'm looking forward to because I've had a very full plate right now of a bunch of things at work that have need to happen and they're all high priority and have tight deadlines; I just feel like I have a lot of balls in the air at the moment, and I'm trying to not drop any, and a lot of and things keep more get thrown at me as I'm trying to keep the ones I have already up. So, I'm just feeling like there's a lot happening, and I have a couple books scheduled for the podcast in the next couple months. So, I have workbooks I need to read, not just fun books, and it's just a little overwhelming, but that's okay. I'm not too stressed. I just feel like there's a lot, but I'm not feeling overwhelmed, which is good, but I'm just very much looking forward to having a three-day weekend to do maybe a little bit of a reset is my hope. So that is my plan at the moment. Nothing super exciting. I'm trying to think if there's anything else worth chatting about right now. Not really. I'm just feeling like I'm super inwardly focused on work and all the things that I need to get done because I have deadlines coming up fast. So that is my main focus at the moment.

Jennie: And with that, let's get to this week's interview because it's a really great conversation on something I'm really interested in. We are talking to Julianne Deitch with the Women's Refugee Commission to talk about their new report on how US aid cuts are harming women and girls in humanitarian settings. And it's a really important conversation to see what the fallout has been one year later for the aid freeze and funding cuts that have impacted women and girls in humanitarian spaces. And then we also look ahead to this is what we're seeing now. But also, we have this huge new expansion of the global gag rule that was just announced. That is gonna impact humanitarian spaces for the first time. So, while we don't do a deep dive into global gag rule because that should be its own episode and was its own episode, we'll make sure to include a link in the show notes if you want to learn more. But that episode was two weeks ago, I think. We talk specifically about what this expansion of the Global Gag Rule would mean in humanitarian spaces. So, it's an important conversation, and I hope y'all enjoy it. So, with that, let's go to my interview with Julianne.

Jennie: Hi, Julianne. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you about this new report y'all have. But before we get started, do you want to do a quick round of introductions, so people know who you are?

Julianne: Sure. So, my name is Julianne Deitch. I'm the Associate Director of Research at the Women's Refugee Commission. And for listeners who don't know, WRC is a research and advocacy organization dedicated to improving the lives and protecting the rights of women and children displaced by conflict and crises around the world. So, how we work is we partner often directly with affected communities to understand their priorities and document their needs and solutions and then use that evidence to really push for policy and practice change in the humanitarian system.

Jennie: It's so great to give that extra context because it brings up what I think we need to do a little bit before we get into the report, and that's to do like just a little bit of scene setting for people who maybe aren't familiar with this space. So, the first thing is we talk about humanitarian settings. Like, what does that mean? What are humanitarian settings?

Julianne: Sure. So, humanitarian setting is a real blanket term, and I know people use different terminology: humanitarian crisis, crisis settings, disasters. But really, when we think of a humanitarian setting, it's anywhere that life has been disrupted by conflict, natural disasters, or any kind of force displacement.

Jennie: Good. Okay, so we're gonna get to there was a big change with the new administration. So, maybe like pre-2025, what was the US's role in funding humanitarian spaces? Just so people have an idea of what we were talking about before.

Julianne: Sure. So, before 2025, the US was historically one of the largest, if not the largest, donor to humanitarian aid globally. And that's in absolute terms. So, US humanitarian aid hovered around $13, $14 billion annually. And that aid was targeted to address immediate needs of populations in crises. So, that's things like food, healthcare, shelter, water, and protection. Humanitarian aid has a principle of being neutral and needs-based. So, it focuses on saving lives and reducing suffering. And I think what's also important to note is yes, the US was the largest donor or provider of humanitarian aid in absolute terms, but in terms of as a percentage of gross national income, we were, I think, 25th or 26th. So, humanitarian aid in years prior was less than 0.1% of the US gross national income. And then I think the next thing is that humanitarian aid was provided in different ways through agencies like USAID as well as the State Department and different kinds of health services. But so, US humanitarian aid or US humanitarian assistance is a part of foreign aid. So, when we're looking at the total amount of US foreign aid in years past and the total amount of foreign aid that was cut, US humanitarian aid is a portion of that.

Jennie: That's a good clarification. And I think another thing just that might help people understand a little bit of background before we get into the report is the report focuses on women and girls, and maybe we and so do y'all. So, like, why is it so important to talk about women and girls in humanitarian spaces?

Julianne: Again, humanitarian aid should be neutral and needs-based. And we know, and it's very clear from decades of research and evidence that needs in humanitarian crises are different for different people. And women and girls often have very different and also disproportionate needs. This is because they face disproportionate risks such as gender-based violence, maternal health complications, and different kinds of barriers to accessing humanitarian aid. At the same time, women and girls, as so many places in the world, are usually carrying a huge share of caregiving and household responsibilities, and they are often responsible for providing support to their children and extended families. So, that is why women and girls are such a critical target population for humanitarian programming and services. And then women also are not just recipients of aid, or they're not just those that are in need. They're also those that are often running local organizations, driving, mutual aid, mutual support groups, sharing information, holding families together. So really investing in women, it's not just needs-based, it's also investing in communities.

Jennie: Okay, so that brings us all to a year ago. And the new administration froze all foreign assistance. Do you maybe want to talk a little bit about what happened and what are the impacts that we saw because of it?

Julianne: So, as many listeners will recall, January 20th, 2025, there was the executive order to freeze all U.S. foreign aid for a 90-day period to review whether or not the aid was in line with U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy. But we know that that freeze turned into really a dismantling of the entire infrastructure that is foreign assistance. It led to the closure of USAID and canceling tens of billions of dollars in US foreign assistance, including over $10 billion in humanitarian assistance. It not only put work on hold, but it kind of threw the system into chaos with just a lot of confusion and uncertainty about what the freeze really meant, and obviously immediate concerns from organizations around the world, just really unsure if they could continue operating. And in humanitarian crises, when the needs are immediate and the services and programming that was funded by the US government is truly lifesaving in the most absolute terms. That freeze was life-threatening. And that's especially the case for women and girls.

Jennie: Yeah, it was one of those things where it created so much confusion, right? Because it was like freeze, but we'll get life-saving assistance or we'll do this. And that really just created chaos throughout the whole system.

Julianne: Definitely. And then there were the stop work orders, and then there were people fighting the stop work orders, and some did get waivers, but by the point of waivers, so much had already been disrupted. So yeah, it was really a chaotic few months in the early part of 2025. But I think what we've seen and what I'll talk about is just how that chaos or just the impact has been really just cannot be overstated. It's really quite staggering.

Jennie: Yeah. So, let's turn to some of that impact. I found even working in this field, just seeing the numbers was still really shocking to see it all laid out like it was in the report. And we'll include links to the report and stuff in our show notes so our audience can see it as well. But let's talk a little bit about: what are some of the impacts?

Julianne: Yeah, sure. So, from the beginning last year, WRC wanted to understand: what is the impact for women and girls? And we were seeing that a lot was coming out, but the evidence was really piecemeal. And a lot of what was coming out was projections or kind of guesses as to what might happen. And there was less evidence on the real lived experience of women and girls and what the true impact in their lives was. A lot of evidence, not surprisingly, was not gender disaggregated, and it wasn't necessarily focused on humanitarian settings. A lot of evidence that we saw coming out last year was at the global level. So, toward the end of 2025, WRC wanted to systematically assess the impact of the foreign aid cuts on women and girls in humanitarian settings. So, to do that, we did a scoping review where we looked at all types of evidence that had been published since January 20th, 2025, whether it was news articles, peer-reviewed literature, program reports, whatever we could find that actually had concrete evidence of the impact. And with that, we found over a hundred sources with evidence from 32 countries. And we published that report last month. To our knowledge, it was the first and the most comprehensive synthesis of evidence. And there are certainly still large gaps in the evidence, I will say. And I can get into that later, but still, some of the patterns from what is out there, and it's only been a year, so still the patterns are striking. So, the first finding was that women and girls in humanitarian crises have lost access to life-saving health care. This includes maternal health care, family planning services, sexual and reproductive health care. In some places, mobile clinics completely stopped operating, supply chains were disrupted, and a lot of trained healthcare staff were laid off due to the funding cuts. This happened everywhere, so it's not unique to humanitarian settings, but what is unique to humanitarian settings is that these services are often or were often the primary or only accessible source of healthcare for women and girls. And what's also unique is that in humanitarian settings, where the national health system and the infrastructure is severely weakened, women and girls face higher risks of maternal mortality and morbidity. So, we found evidence of maternal deaths that were directly attributable to funding cuts from the US. These deaths occurred in Afghanistan and Yemen. And there was also documentation of the deaths of several women in Ethiopia due to the disruption of supply chains for anti-retroviral drugs. So, that impact on health care was really the most clear and striking. I think not only in terms of the absolute amount of dollars that were cut from maternal health care, but just the immediate implications of life or death that we see very clearly from the evidence. The second key finding that was really clear is that women and girls, as a result of these funding cuts, are less safe from violence. So, US humanitarian funding to the GBV sector fell by nearly 80%. It's likely more, but that's just what we could find. And our report documents widespread disruption to GBV programs and services. So, for example, women and girls' safe spaces; these are often the only entry point for women and girls to survivor-centered care in humanitarian crises. We found documentation of closure of women and girls' safe spaces by the hundreds and in places like Sudan and Gaza and Yemen, where again, these are often the only source of programming for survivors of gender-based violence. To say again, we know that funding cuts happen globally, not just humanitarian settings, but we also know that GBV risks increase in conflict or displacement settings. So, these cuts to the GBV sector are really, really consequential for women and girls in humanitarian crises. And then the last finding, there are a few more, but the last one I want to mention now is that the funding cuts were especially harsh for local women-led and women's rights organizations. They were amongst the hardest hit by these funding cuts. Many of these organizations operate on a very, very small budget. They don't have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to being able to kind of fill the gaps when funding cuts happen. And at the same time, these organizations provide highly targeted and very trusted support to women and girls in humanitarian crises. A survey by UN Women found in early 2025 that nearly half of women-led organizations in humanitarian settings expected to shut down due to U.S. foreign aid cuts in 2025. So, our review found evidence that not only is the closure of women-led organizations impacting service availability and programming for women and girls, but it's also impacting women and girls' access to civic spaces that allow women and girls to come together and mobilize, advocate, and inform humanitarian policy decision making.

Jennie: All of the findings are so important, but the first two really weigh heavy on me, knowing that humanitarian settings are responsible for a large increase in maternal mortality rate and a large portion of maternal deaths around the world happen in humanitarian settings. So, seeing that loss of access to care is just devastating. And then same with GBV; you talked about how you see rates of gender-based violence go up during a conflict or in humanitarian spaces. So, again, to lose those places to go and have safe spaces or to get care after an assault or something, is particularly devastating. And then, to lose that civic space to go and advocate for improvement in those other spaces is just…they all work together in devastating ways.

Julianne: For sure. And I think a key takeaway is also this isn't just the loss of services or programs, as devastating as that is, it's also the disruption of really interconnected networks of support for women and girls that took decades to build; decades of advocacy, funding, personal effort from practitioners and policymakers to make sure that women and girls had some safety net during humanitarian crises. And what we've seen is just the dismantling of these support systems. And often these are in contexts where gender equality is under pressure or even restricted by law or social norms. And in a lot of the most pressing humanitarian crises today, there are severe restrictions for women and girls on what they can and cannot do. So in these places, humanitarian aid is really sometimes the only support that women and girls can access.

Jennie: Yes, I really want to echo that because I think of the years of advocating that we needed to make sure that sexual and reproductive health was a priority immediately in a crisis. And like people are like, no, it's like food, water, and shelter, like [those are] the only things we need to focus on. And people don't stop being pregnant or getting pregnant, like that care is needed right away when a crisis happens. Same with gender-based violence.

Julianne: Exactly.

Jennie: Okay, so now that we have an idea of what we are seeing, y'all had some recommendations. So, what are some of the things that we need to see to help alleviate some of the harm?

Julianne: Sure. Well, we wanted to be really careful about our recommendations in that they were practical, but also really grounded in what the evidence showed. Because I think a lot of the fear or concern is that again, we still don't know fully. We know that there have been widespread and devastating and life-threatening impacts, but there's still gaps. It's only been a year. And I think a lot of rhetoric around the millions of lives that might be affected, people are like, well, we don't know yet. What if this happens? What if that happens? And so, we want to make sure that our recommendations are grounded in the evidence of what is currently happening and then what is really practical. So, first, of course, we want to call for restored funding. We want, of course, that's always a recommendation, more funding. But we are also realistic in knowing that that's easier said than done. And US foreign aid cuts are just one piece of a bigger picture of a lot of international donors scaling back their funding for humanitarian assistance and gender equality programming. The UK, Germany, France, these donors have also had significant reductions in foreign aid. So, it's not realistic to expect another donor. To fill the gaps in what has been lost by the US foreign aid cuts. However, our recommendation is that we need to be very clear and continue to push that gender-responsive humanitarian aid is lifesaving. It is not a nice to have, it is not an add-on, but it needs to be a core principle of funding. That when funding is cut or paused for programs and services targeting women and girls, again, it's not theoretical. It is consequential and life-threatening. So, it's not just more funding, but it's advancing a principle of gender-responsive humanitarian programming. We also saw how important it is to directly support local and women-led organizations. These organizations are the first responders and the most trusted in their communities, but operating on very thin margins, as we saw when they experience funding cuts, they completely lose their ability to operate. So, donors must not only provide more funding to these organizations, but funding mechanisms really have to be adapted. There needs to be a real shakeup in how women-led organizations and local organizations are funded. So, that means simplifying application processes, reducing administrative requirements, and really shifting toward more trust-based funding as opposed to what we often see from donors is burdensome compliance regimes. Now, our last recommendation is recognizing that donors might very likely continue to reduce humanitarian funding. That is the reality right now. A lot of people are saying do more with less. We do not want to say that because that's placing a very, very unfair burden on local organizations who are being forced to do more with less with severe consequences. So, if donors are required to reduce their funding, we say that this has to be done with shared decision making. Local partners have to be part of that conversation of what it means to reduce funding. Completely opposite to what we saw with the withdrawal of US foreign aid that was done overnight with zero consultation, with very unclear communications. So, to counter that, other donors need to really focus on having shared decision making and transparent communication with partners for responsible transition planning. And then we also need mechanisms that hold donors accountable. The US and other donors were able to withdraw this funding with zero consequence. And the harm lands on women and girls themselves and on local organizations who are left on the front lines providing programs and services. So, we need mechanisms for accountability and also a way to meaningfully assess what are the harms of rapid funding reductions. How are these funding reductions harming communities and also placing local partners at risk?

Jennie: I found the report really informative. It was great to not great because like it was all terrible, but it was nice to see the specific impacts you were seeing and have a good idea of what is happening and weight and recommendations on how to fix that. But now we are living in a world where things have shifted again with the administration announcing this massive expansion of the Global Gag Rule. And obviously, I don't expect you to do a deep dive into it because it's a lot, and we already have a full episode doing that. So, if y'all want to learn more, we'll have the link in the show notes. But it was two episodes ago we did the deep dive into it. But one of the areas now impacted that had never previously been impacted is humanitarian spaces. So, now that we know what we're seeing already from these funding cuts, what could happen with this expansion of the global gag rule into the humanitarian spaces?

Julianne: Yeah, it's like a one-two punch. And actually, something else really consequential also happened right after we finished writing the report, but before we released it, and that is that the US committed $2 billion in humanitarian aid that went directly to UN OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] through something called country-based pool funds, and I'll get into that a bit more if you want. But that alongside this expansion of the global gag rule has really very, very concerning considerations or potential consequences for women and girls in humanitarian settings. So great that you already did a two-part episode on the expansion because it's really like, I mean, it's shocking. I think all of us are still trying to wrap our heads around it and what it means. It's intentionally, I think, vague and confusing. But just a quick summary to kind of see to show how it's changed in a way that impacts women and girls in humanitarian settings. So historically, it restricted foreign NGOs that received US global health assistance from using any funding to provide or promote abortion. And that's how it's operated for decades on and off. So, the new scale and scope is there are three ways in which the new scale and scope really impact women and girls in humanitarian settings. So, first, and this is, I guess, the most clear in what you mentioned, is that it now covers all US foreign aid, including humanitarian assistance, whereas it used to only cover global health assistance. So, it now applies to all recipients of any US humanitarian aid, which, as I mentioned, the US has completely reconfigured through this contribution of $2 billion to country-based pool funds. So, I can touch upon that later. The second way in which the expansion impacts humanitarian settings is that the policy now applies to any recipient of US foreign aid. So, previously, it was just foreign NGOs. It still applies to them, but now it also applies to US-based organizations, foreign governments, extremely concerning, and international and multilateral organizations such as the UN. So, the policy is actually most strict, as I understand it, for foreign NGOs and international and multilateral organizations. They must pass the policy down to all subrecipients of any of their funding. Humanitarian aid is typically channeled through international and multilateral organizations such as the UN. So, this expansion is really, really worrying for humanitarian operations across the board. And then the last and perhaps the most concerning is that this potentially prohibits the use of certain characteristics or criteria when it comes to resource allocation or program participation. So, it prohibits the use of national origin, religion, race, ethnicity as a characteristic or a criterion for resource allocation. And in humanitarian response, humanitarian needs are often classified in this way, right? We don't know exactly how the policy might be interpreted in terms of targeting populations in need of humanitarian assistance. But just the confusion and the lack of clarity, I think, is very concerning in that regard. And it forces organizations into an impossible choice of losing critical funding from the US or completely abandoning their commitments to gender equality, diversity, and advancing the rights of women and girls. Women and girls, as I mentioned, in humanitarian crises have the fewest alternatives for care. So, I think the consequences will certainly be the most severe. So, the US announced this $2 billion contribution. This is their annual gift for humanitarian aid. Sounds great. Well, we used to give over $10 billion in humanitarian aid. So, it's a fraction of what we used to give. And humanitarian needs have just continued to increase over the years. So, whatever. But the amount aside, these funds are now being channeled into what are called country-based pool funds. So, some have welcomed this change because on paper, funneling money into pooled funds can actually really help to get resources out quickly to where they're needed most. It reduces fragmentation into sectors that we often see, and oftentimes donors will earmark money for certain purposes, which can really slow down the distribution of aid. So, in some respects, many would argue country-based pool funds are like an excellent way forward for the humanitarian system. But this new mechanism that the US has contributed their aid through alongside the expanded global gag is very concerning because there's a lot of uncertainty as to whether now any organization withdrawing from a pool fund, are they also recipients of US funding? And so, does that mean that any organization that takes from a pooled fund has to also comply with this expanded global gag because the pooled funds have been earmarked as also receiving US funding. So that is a real concern. I think the fear is that this money that the US has provided, yes, okay, it's better than nothing. And it can certainly be a way to fast-track aid to those who need it most. However, the conditions attached to this money, and it does have the condition of the expanded global gag; it could really undermine humanitarian principles and constrain critical services. So yeah, and this uncertainty and this chaos and confusion that has been the nature of this administration, this can also slow down how quickly the money can move to the people and places where it's most needed.

Jennie: It's like this terrible onion of, like, every time you hear more about it, it's like peeling back the new levels of terrible and harm it's going to do. I think about it in the context of the conversation we were having earlier, where in humanitarian settings you see increased maternal mortality, increased rates of GBV. So, I'm thinking of the person who maybe has been assaulted and has an unwanted pregnancy and wants to get an abortion or any type of care. And the providers are having to decide if they want to take money so they can help more people or turn down the money and provide the full range of care for the people who need it or be able to even refer that patient to somewhere where they can get a safe abortion. So, the patient then goes into the facility that decides to accept gagged money, and that provider can't tell them that one abortion is an option, or if they want to get one where they could go to get a safe one. And so that patient is not getting the care they want and could then turn to get an unsafe method that then could put their life at risk because we know unsafe abortion is a big fuel of maternal mortality. So, like, just seeing all of this playing out and the harm that it is going to do to people who are already in desperate situations.

Julianne: Yeah, it certainly will not improve health in any way. Yeah, and I think what's also concerning is just kind of the trickle down or the freezing effects of the policy, because we know that even when the policy has been revoked or rescinded, that it's not right away that things can just go back to normal, right? That these things take time to reverse, especially when it's going through several different channels to get to the services. It's not just immediate that right away providers are “okay, now we can refer people to abortion care,” because it's impacted entire systems. Similar to the humanitarian aid cuts, it's like whole systems are impacted by the lack of funding and also by these policy changes.

Jennie: That provider may have closed, they may have moved on. So, all of a sudden, the money's there, but the network may not be there anymore. Okay. So, that was all bleak and grim, but let's end on…I don't know if it's a positive note, but at least an active note. What is something the audience can do right now to help?

Julianne: I think the first thing is just staying informed, paying attention, not being distracted by all the other things. I mean, there's a lot to pay attention to, and it's hard, I think, to yeah, we get fatigued by everything that's being thrown at us and all of the harm we're seeing domestically. And sometimes I think I understand why foreign aid decisions might be lower on the list of priorities that people can actively pay attention to and care about. So, I think the first thing I would say is just, yeah, paying attention. Keeping your eye on how these decisions are impacting real lives. And the policies can feel really distant, but they shape whether someone can access healthcare, safety, or food. And if one feels compelled to understand how it impacts life here in the US, there is evidence on that. We don't put that as a central angle in terms of why someone should care about this, but certainly there are ties to how reductions in foreign aid and humanitarian assistance can ultimately impact us here in the US. And I think, second, to see it as both the cuts in humanitarian aid and also the expansion of the global gag, it is not unique to foreign aid and international health care. It is part of a wider pushback to gender equality and backlash to women's rights. So, it is just one way in which the administration is inflicting harm on women and girls, and they're doing it in the same way with their domestic policy. So being able to see, I think, the ties to um…just yeah, it's all part of a bigger plan. And I think what people, if they want to do something more active than just, well, paying attention is important and really focusing on the evidence and amplifying research and reporting. But second, we have elected representatives, and foreign aid is a budget and a policy choice, and constituents' voices do matter, should matter. So, I think sharing with representatives that humanitarian funding, including for sexual and reproductive health, sharing that these funding mechanisms save lives and support stability, hopefully that can influence how these issues are prioritized in our budget. And third, supporting organizations doing this work, particularly, as I mentioned, those local women-led organizations who are on the front lines and really having to deal with impossible scenarios of funding cuts and increasing needs of women and girls, supporting, seeing ways in which you can support those organizations who are really doing the work, while also supporting larger organizations who are trying to provide the evidence and the data. So, amplifying that research and reporting, sharing credible information so that the impacts remain visible.

Jennie: Yeah, I think that is also important. And just like to piggyback on your first point of keeping informed about what's going on. And yes, foreign assistance may seem really far and distant, but they're also kind of counting on that. And a lot of things are being tested in that space that then come home. Whether that is this expanded version of the global gag rule, could come home in a domestic version, or seeing how people react to an agency being unilaterally eliminated. And so, USAID is gone. And there was some backlash, but it wasn't a ton. So maybe now we can talk about getting rid of the Department of Education or things like that. So, it's a way that they are testing their boundaries a little bit, right? The raptors testing the fences to see what they can get away with.

Julianne: Yeah, and what can they get away with in terms of inflicting harm on women and girls in foreign countries before they inflict that same harm on women and girls in the US?

Jennie: Well, Julianne, thank you so much for being here. It was so lovely to get to talk to you again. Thanks.

Julianne: Thank you.

Jennie: Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Julianne. Like I said, it was really important to talk about the impacts that we are seeing one year later for these funding cuts. And it was really devastating to hear what the impacts on women and girls have been in humanitarian spaces. And I think with that, I will see everybody next week. If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at @rePROsFightBack on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all.