Documenting the early impact of the US foreign aid directives on harm reduction programming

On January 24, 2025, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued an immediate halt to most foreign aid programmes for 90 days, pending a comprehensive review to ensure alignment with the current administration’s values and policies. Since then, it has been made public that approximately 10,000 US foreign aid grants, awards and contracts have been, or will be terminated over the coming days causing heightened confusion and disbelief within the HIV, TB and malaria sector and well beyond. This U.S. policy directive affects a wide range of global health and development initiatives with wide ranging implications for people who use drugs and their access to services.

We’ve developed this survey to get a better sense from harm reduction organisations and networks of people who use drugs of how these recent US funding directives are affecting harm reduction services, HIV and hepatitis care, and human rights programming for people who use drugs at the regional and country level. We will present the findings from this survey during the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND, March 10-14, 2025) and widely with our partners and funding agencies. Time is of the essence. Please take a few minutes today and complete this survey to share how these devastating U.S. policy changes are affecting your organisation and the services you provide to our community.

This survey should take 10-12 minutes of your time and your responses will be fully anonymised. Your candid responses are crucial to monitoring and documenting how this US-policy affects the lives of our community and will help to inform our collective advocacy efforts. While this survey will remain anonymous, we have also provided the option for you to share your contact details should you wish to provide additional quotes or testimonials in this report.