'They will die': Foreign aid cuts hit women and girls the hardest as NGOs face closure

Reduced aid funding threatens the lives of women and girls worldwide as many NGOs that support them predict they will be forced to shut down soon.

Young girls are denied an education and forced into child labour or early marriage, pregnant women in refugee camps have to give birth without a midwife, female survivors of rape, sex workers and HIV patients are left without shelter or support.These are not hypothetical scenarios or stark warnings, but the real and current impacts of massive foreign aid cuts on NGOs that support women and girls in war and conflict zones and crisis-stricken countries ranging from Gaza to Ukraine, several aid groups told Euronews. Women-led and women’s rights groups operating on the frontlines of humanitarian crises have been hit the hardest — with almost half of all such organisations expecting to shut down within six months due to a lack of funding, warned a recent report by UN Women.A survey it conducted in March of 411 women-led and women's rights organisations across 44 countries also found that nearly three-quarters of the groups had already laid off staff while just over half had suspended programmes due to funding cuts. “Simply put, women and girls will die from lack of access to these services,” said Sabine Freizer Gunes, UN Women’s country representative in Ukraine. “This situation will worsen as women’s organisations providing vital services are forced to close.”International aid fell in 2024 for the first time in six years, and over the last year or so, top donor governments have announced cuts to overseas development assistance (ODA), including Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US — the world’s largest donor. The administration of US President Donald Trump has dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed billions of dollars for aid projects globally.Only 11.1% of the $46 billion (€40.6bn) required for global humanitarian needs in 2025 has been funded, forcing the entire aid system to reform and cut back, UN Women said.Dorothy Sang, head of advocacy and policy at CARE International UK, described the responses to UN Women's survey as “deeply concerning”, and said it was not just a case of “abstract losses or numbers on a spreadsheet”. “It’s about daily, human experience: a girl who no longer has a safe space to learn; a mother giving birth without medical support; a survivor of violence turned away from a shelter that’s been closed,” she told Euronews. “The international aid architecture is being turned on its head and while we of course want to see vital aid being restored — we need to make sure the decisions being made right now do not leave a legacy of destruction for women and girls,” Sang added.‘Dire situation’Even before the recent cuts announced by leading government donors, humanitarian organisations worldwide were already struggling with an overall reduction in ODA.Such aid amounted to $212 billion (€188bn) last year, a reduction of by 7.1% in real terms compared to 2023, the first drop after five years of consecutive growth, according to the latest data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).NGOs say this funding squeeze has been compounded by the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID, which the US president himself referred to last month as “devastating” while saying he hoped they would spur other countries to “chip in and spend money too”. The US was responsible for 38% of all global aid funding recorded by the UN last year. US government data shows that it disbursed about $61 billion (€69bn) in foreign aid in 2024, more than half of which came from USAID. Aside from the US, eight European countries and the EU itself have announced or already implemented cuts to their overseas development assistance totalling some €30 billion over the next four years, found a recent study by Countdown 2030 Europe.Aid cuts disproportionately affect local women-led and women's rights groups compared with international NGOs and UN entities, according to UN Women’s research and experts.Nearly two-thirds (62%) of the women-led and women's rights organisations surveyed said they have had to reduce services to women and girls, and four in five predicted that the reductions in foreign aid would severely undermine access to life-saving services.A separate report released in April by several UN agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the funding cuts were putting more pregnant women at risk, and ultimately threatening fragile progress worldwide in ending maternal deaths.In places such as the Democratic Republic Congo, Gaza, and Ukraine, women-led and women's rights groups "are often the backbone of their communities, acting as first responders and providing life-saving relief,” according to Niki Ignatiou, head of women, peace, and security at ActionAid UK. “Global North governments and donors … need to stop overlooking the national, local and grassroots groups that are doing the heavy lifting in crisis zones,” she told Euronews. “We know from previous cuts to ODA in the UK that in the immediate wake of cuts, women and girls lose most, including access to lifesaving services," Ignatiou added.When vital services collapse during humanitarian crises, women and girls also tend to take on more care-related responsibilities, such as providing food and water and looking after the sick, UN Women said. They are also more likely to sacrifice their own health and nutrition to put their families first, and tend to have fewer opportunities to earn money. One local women’s rights organisation in Ukraine, which operates solely on money from donors, told UN Women that it was in a “dire situation” due to a reduction in funding. “Many of our beneficiaries, women who have survived violence, HIV-positive women, former prisoners, sex workers, urgently need adaptation support and social services, but due to funding cuts, we can only offer phone consultations,” said the NGO, which was not identified.Women’s rights rollback?Faced with reduced funding, women-led and women’s rights groups are selling assets and cutting operational costs — among other measures — UN Women said. Many are also looking for new donors or seeking additional support from their existing backers.Several of the aid experts said that humanitarian programmes for women and girls must be protected and prioritised, with greater investments in local women’s organisations and more flexibility over the funding provided in order to ensure long-term support. Gunes of UN Women in Ukraine said the terms of funding for women-led and women’s rights groups had routinely undermined their sustainability. She highlighted how money is typically tied to specific projects, which often only last for a few months up to a year.“This has all kinds of implications for organisational sustainability and strategic growth,” she said, calling for donors to consider flexible funding that allows women’s groups to respond in real time to needs on the ground, instead of being driven by donor priorities.While the immediate focus is on protecting the lives of women and girls, there is also concern in the aid sector about the long-term impact of funding cuts on women’s rights. “The weakening of these organisations will roll back the gains and progress made on gender equality and women’s empowerment and may further embolden the anti-gender movements,” said April Pham, chief of the gender unit at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).Local women’s organisations from countries including Colombia and Cameroon told UN Women that the dwindling funding available to them was a setback for women’s rights.“Without the presence of women’s organisations, women will be increasingly neglected and their rights will be trampled on,” said one such NGO in DRC, which was not named.At a time when gender equality is under sustained attack, all humanitarian actors must reinforce their commitments to women-led and women’s rights groups, Pham said.“We now have an opportunity to shape a humanitarian reset that truly puts women and girls at the centre — and it is time we do it,” she added.