The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance.

USAID was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to unite several foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency.

Statute law places USAID under "the direct authority and policy guidance of the Secretary of State". It implements programs in global health, disaster relief, socioeconomic development, environmental protection, democratic governance and education. With average annual disbursements of about $23bn since 2001, USAID has been one of the world's largest aid agencies and accounts for most U.S. foreign assistance – the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. USAID has missions in over 100 countries, primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

USAID has faced scrutiny over its role in political operations of influence abroad and potential conflicts of interest. In January 2025, the Trump administration ordered a near-total freeze on foreign aid, making false and misleading allegations of wasteful spending and fraud and planning to reduce employee numbers from around 10,000 to 290. Elon Musk, who has been carrying out Trump's cost-cutting agenda as a special government employee through the Department of Government Efficiency, announced the intention of shutting down USAID The legality of Trump's order was contested, and a federal court issued a temporary restraining order pausing staff reductions.

Creation

Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid. The goal of this agency was to counter Soviet Union influence during the Cold War and to advance US soft power through socioeconomic development. USAID was subsequently established by the executive order of President John F. Kennedy, who sought to unite several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency.

Congress authorizes USAID's programs in the Foreign Assistance Act, which Congress supplements through directions in annual funding appropriation acts and other legislation. As an official component of U.S. foreign policy, USAID operates subject to the guidance of the president, secretary of state, and the National Security Council.

Congress also passed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which established USAID as an "independent establishment" outside of the U.S. Department of State.

History

When the U.S. government created USAID in November 1961, it built on a legacy of previous development-assistance agencies and their people, budgets, and operating procedures. USAID's predecessor agency was already substantial, with 6,400 U.S. staff in developing-country field missions in 1961. Except for the peak years of the Vietnam War, 1965–70, that was more U.S. field staff than USAID would have in the future, and triple the number USAID has had in field missions in the years since 2000.

After his inauguration as president on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps by Executive Order on March 1, 1961. On March 22, he sent a special message to Congress on foreign aid, asserting that the 1960s should be a "Decade of Development" and proposing to unify U.S. development assistance administration into a single agency. He sent a proposed "Act for International Development" to Congress in May and the resulting "Foreign Assistance Act" was approved in September, repealing the Mutual Security Act. In November, Kennedy signed the act and issued an Executive Order tasking the Secretary of State to create, within the State Department, the "Agency for International Development" (or A.I.D.: subsequently re-branded as USAID), as the successor to both ICA and the Development Loan Fund. With these actions, the U.S. created a permanent agency working with administrative autonomy under the policy guidance of the State Department to implement, through resident field missions, a global program of both technical and financial development assistance for low-income countries. This structure has continued to date.

Second Trump administration

In 2024, USAID's Inspector General had launched a probe into Starlink, which is operated by Musk; this led to concerns that the latter's role in the agency's downsizing constituted a conflict of interest.

On January 24, 2025, President Donald Trump ordered a near-total freeze on all foreign aid. Several days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for humanitarian aid. Despite the waiver, there was still much confusion about what agencies should do. More than 1,000 USAID employees and contractors were fired or furloughed following the near-total freeze on U.S. global assistance that the second Trump administration implemented. Matt Hopson, the USAID chief of staff appointed by the Trump administration, resigned.

On January 27, 2025, the agency's official government website was shut down. On February 3, 2025, Elon Musk, who has been carrying out parts of Trump's cost-cutting agenda, announced that he and Trump were in the process of shutting down USAID, claiming it to be a "criminal organization" and that it was "beyond repair". Also on February 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had been appointed Acting Administrator of USAID by Trump and that the agency was being merged into the State Department. The legality of these actions is disputed given the mandate for its creation in the Foreign Assistance Act.

It was announced that on February 6, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel would be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. By the evening of February 6, reports had emerged indicating that the total number of employees to be retained was 294, out of a total of more than 10,000. Trump declared that agency leaders were "radical left lunatics", while the State Department ordered them to halt virtually all their projects, even if that meant ceasing programs that helped to eradicate smallpox and prevented millions of HIV cases. The freeze in HIV relief programs, including PEPFAR, is estimated to jeopardize treatment access for 20 million people, including 500,000 children. This drastic action led to sudden pauses in over 30 clinical trials for ailments such as HIV, malaria, cholera, cervical cancer, and tuberculosis, leaving participants with medical devices in their bodies and cut off from researchers, likely going against the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. It also led to a pause in other efforts such as wartime help in Ukraine, hospital assistance in Syria, education programs in Mali, and conservation efforts in the Amazon. In a statement explaining the threat to billions of dollars the agency spends on American businesses, the American Farm Bureau Federation said, "AID plays a critical role in reducing hunger around the world while sourcing markets for the surplus foods America’s farmers and ranchers grow".

The action of the Trump administration also caused frustration among conservatives. Andrew Natsios, the administrator for USAID during the George W. Bush administration, told PBS that, "With all due respect, none of these people know anything about AID. What does Musk know about international development? Absolutely nothing. He has a bunch of young kids in their 20s. They don't know. They're techies. They don't know anything about international development. They don't know anything about the Global South. They don't know anything about these — the programs and policies of the agency. AID is the most pro-business and pro-market of all aid agencies in the world. I can tell you that categorically. I am a conservative Republican. I'm not a liberal. And I have served in repeated Republican administrations."

A lawsuit was then filed on February 6 by the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on February 6, requesting a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the administration, claiming that it violated separation of powers, the Take Care Clause of the Constitution, and the Administrative Procedure Act and requesting that all attempts to shut down the agency be halted, all recent actions be reversed, and a new acting director be appointed. The following day, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, nominated by President Trump in 2019, stated from the bench that he would enter in a "temporary restraining order", pausing the plan to put thousands of employees on leave and pausing the accelerated removal of workers from their posts abroad.

On February 21, Judge Nichols cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with pulling thousands of USAID staffers off the job in the United States and around the world, as part of an administration plan to also provide those abroad with a 30-day deadline to move back to the U.S. at government expense. Nichols had previously argued that Trump's actions threaten the safety of USAID workers abroad because many are deployed in unstable regions.

Organization

USAID is organized around country development programs managed by resident USAID offices in developing countries ("USAID missions"), supported by USAID's global headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Country development programs

USAID plans its work in each country around an individual country development program managed by a resident office called a "mission". The USAID mission and its U.S. staff are guests in the country, with a status that is usually defined by a "framework bilateral agreement" between the government of the United States and the host government. Framework bilaterals give the mission and its U.S. staff privileges similar to (but not necessarily the same as) those accorded to the U.S. embassy and diplomats by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.

USAID missions work in over fifty countries, consulting with their governments and non-governmental organizations to identify programs that will receive USAID's assistance. As part of this process, USAID missions conduct socio-economic analysis, discuss projects with host-country leaders, design assistance to those projects, award contracts and grants, administer assistance (including evaluation and reporting), and manage flows of funds.

As countries develop and need less assistance, USAID shrinks and ultimately closes its resident missions. USAID has closed missions in a number of countries that had achieved a substantial level of prosperity, including South Korea, Turkey, and Costa Rica.

USAID also closes missions when requested by host countries for political reasons. In September 2012, the U.S. closed USAID/Russia at that country's request. Its mission in Moscow had been in operation for two decades. On May 1, 2013, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, asked USAID to close its mission, which had worked in the country for 49 years. The closure was completed on September 20, 2013.

USAID missions are led by mission directors and are staffed both by USAID Foreign Service officers and by development professionals from the country itself, with the host-country professionals forming the majority of the staff. The length of a Foreign service officer's "tour" in most countries is four years, to provide enough time to develop in-depth knowledge about the country. (Shorter tours of one or two years are usual in countries of exceptional hardship or danger.)

The mission director is a member of the U.S. Embassy's "Country Team" under the direction of the U.S. ambassador. As a USAID mission works in an unclassified environment with relative frequent public interaction, most missions were initially located in independent offices in the business districts of capital cities. Since the passage of the Foreign Affairs Agencies Consolidation Act in 1998 and the bombings of U.S. Embassy chanceries in East Africa in the same year, missions have gradually been moved into U.S. Embassy chancery compounds.

USAID/Washington

The country programs are supported by USAID's headquarters in Washington, D.C., "USAID/Washington", where about half of USAID's Foreign Service officers work on rotation from foreign assignments, alongside USAID's Civil Service staff and top leadership.

USAID is headed by an administrator. Under the Biden administration, the administrator became a regular attendee of the National Security Council.

USAID/Washington helps define overall federal civilian foreign assistance policy and budgets, working with the State Department, Congress, and other U.S. government agencies. It is organized into "Bureaus" covering geographical areas, development subject areas, and administrative functions. Each bureau is headed by an assistant administrator appointed by the president.

(Some tasks similar to those of USAID's Bureaus are performed by what are termed "Independent Offices".)

• Geographic bureaus
  • AFR – Africa
  • ASIA – Asia
  • LAC – Latin America & the Caribbean
  • E&E – Europe and Eurasia
  • ME – the Middle East
• Subject-area bureaus
  • GH – Global Health
    • Every year, the Global Health Bureau reports to the U.S. Congress through its Global Health Report to Congress. The Global Health Bureau also submits a yearly report on the Call to Action: ending preventable child and maternal deaths. This is part of USAID's follow-up to the 2012, where it committed to ending preventable child and maternal deaths in a generation with A Promise Renewed.
  • E3 – Economic Growth, Education, and the Environment
    • Economic Growth offices in E3 define Agency policy and provide technical support to Mission assistance activities in the areas of economic policy formulation, international trade, sectoral regulation, capital markets, microfinance, energy, infrastructure, land tenure, urban planning and property rights, gender equality and women's empowerment. The Engineering Division, in particular, draws on licensed professional engineers to support USAID Missions in a multibillion-dollar portfolio of construction projects, including medical facilities, schools, universities, roads, power plants, and water and sanitation plants.
    • The Education Office in E3 defines Agency policy and provides technical support to Mission assistance activities for both basic and tertiary education.
    • Environment offices in E3 define Agency policy and provide technical support to Mission assistance activities in the areas of climate change and biodiversity.
  • Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance
  • Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance
    • The mission of the DRG Bureau is to lead USAID's efforts to invigorate democracy, enhance human rights and justice, and bolster governance that advances the public interest and delivers inclusive development.
  • LAB – U.S. Global Development Lab
    • The Lab serves as an innovation hub, taking smart risks to test new ideas and partner within the Agency and with other actors to harness the power of innovative tools and approaches that accelerate development impact.
  • RFS – Resilience and Food Security
• Headquarters bureaus
  • M – Management
  • OHCTM – Office of Human Capital and Talent Management
  • LPA – Legislative and Public Affairs
  • PPL – Policy, Planning, and Learning
  • BRM – Office of Budget and Resource Management

Independent oversight of USAID activities is provided by its Office of Inspector General, U.S. Agency for International Development, which conducts criminal and civil investigations, financial and performance audits, reviews, and inspections of USAID activities around the world.

Staffing

USAID's staffing reported to Congress in June 2016 totaled 10,235, including both field missions "overseas" (7,176) and the Washington, D.C. headquarters (3,059). Of this total, 1,850 were USAID Foreign Service officers who spend their careers mostly residing overseas (1,586 overseas in June 2016) and partly on rotation in Washington, D.C. (264). The Foreign Service officers stationed overseas worked alongside the 4,935 local staff of USAID's field missions.

Host-country staff normally work under one-year contracts that are renewed annually. Formerly, host-country staff could be recruited as "direct hires" in career positions and at present many host-country staff continue working with USAID missions for full careers on a series of one-year contracts. In USAID's management approach, local staff may fill highly responsible, professional roles in program design and management.

U.S. citizens can apply to become USAID Foreign Service officers by competing for specific job openings based on academic qualifications and experience in development programs. Within five years of recruitment, most Foreign Service officers receive tenure for an additional 20+ years of employment before mandatory retirement. Some are promoted to the Senior Foreign Service with extended tenure, subject to the Foreign Service's mandatory retirement age of 65. (This recruitment system differs from the State Department's use of the "Foreign Service Officer Test" to identify potential U.S. diplomats. Individuals who pass the test become candidates for the State Department's selection process, which emphasizes personal qualities in thirteen dimensions such as "Composure" and "Resourcefulness". No specific education level is required.)

In 2008, USAID launched the "Development Leadership Initiative" to reverse the decline in USAID's Foreign service officer staffing, which had fallen to a total of about 1,200 worldwide. Although USAID's goal was to double the number of Foreign Service officers to about 2,400 in 2012, actual recruitment net of attrition reached only 820 by the end of 2012. USAID's 2016 total of 1,850 Foreign Service officers compared with 13,000 in the State Department.