The State Department wants to send Overseas Staffers home
The US Agency for International Development: Why it’s going to get stuck in the wood chipper? An employee comment on a story by WIRED
Many of the employees of the US Agency for International Development have been put on administrative leave or locked out of their work computers recently, with many of them working on critical public health missions. USAID staffers say this demonstrates that the emergency waiver application process is ineffective and isn’t ensuring that aid workers can continue serving vulnerable populations.
Several people working on the AIDS programs at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were interviewed for a story by WIRED. They were granted anonymity due to fears of retaliation and because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the agency. USAID did not respond to requests for comment.
It is harder to get official information about what might happen next, because of the cut offs of email and systems access by some employees of the US agency. The current worker in the US told WIRED that everybody is concerned for overseas staff who have been left stranded. “We’re not sure how we’re going to get them home safe.”
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk said on social media Sunday. “Could [sic] gone to some great parties. Did that happen instead?
An Internal Communication Blockage in the Department of Foreign Employees’ Assistance for the U.S. Agency for International Development, as Observed by WIRED
An HIV/AIDS organization told WIRED that the unfrozen money can’t be contacted by people who actually froze it. “There’s a bigger communication blockage that is frustrating even the efforts put in place to free up the lifesaving work.”
WIRED has seen internal information that shows the attempt by the leadership of the US Agency for International Development to make a foreign employees’ list on Monday. Pete Marocco, the new director of international assistance for the State Department, convened senior State Department leaders and ordered them to bring all overseas employees back to the US. The news outlet also reported that Marocco said he would evacuate staff with support from the US military if necessary.
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The Secretary of State assumed control of the US Agency for International Development on Monday and speculated that it was because of their incompetence. “If some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization,” Rubio said. He believed that some groups might be trying to make a political point.
In the new year, he said he was trying to get Congressional support for a humanitarian aid plan that could be used to provide food and medicine to the people of Venezuela. Florida is where he is from, and it has a large Venezuela population.
Overall, USAID provided assistance to roughly 130 countries in 2023. The top recipients of aid were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria, according to the Congressional Research Service.
