Organisations providing healthcare projects to communities in Arakan (Rakhine) State have been forced to cease operations after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended funding.
Disease prevention and health awareness campaigns as well as free healthcare support programmes in Arakan State are no longer able to continue due to a lack of funding according to the organisations coordinating the programmes.
A staff member of an NGO based in Kyauktaw Township, Arakan State that provides healthcare said: “The impact is immense. The villages where healthcare projects were planned will be hit the hardest. In our office, around 20 employees have already been laid off.”
With so many projects being forced to close in Arakan State hundreds of employees have lost their jobs.
Another employee of an NGO operating in Arakan State said: “Funding for our organisation's anti-malaria projects has completely stopped, and many office staff have been laid off.”
The sudden abrupt cessation of local development projects has caused great suffering to affected communities in Arakan State, according to local aid organisations.
In the past, healthcare projects—such as raising health awareness, providing health check-ups for pregnant women, and offering vaccinations—were implemented in collaboration with NGOs and civil society organisations in townships like Mrauk-U, Minbya, and Myebon in Arakan State. Now, because they no longer have funding they have had to stop their work.
A Mrauk-U Township resident said: “Even when aid organisations were active, many communities were already grappling with crises. Now that all those organisations have ceased operations, people who were already struggling are at risk of being pushed into even more dire conditions.”
On 20 January 2025, his first day in office, President Trump signed an order suspending all US aid for 90 days accusing the agency of fund mismanagement, waste and harming U.S. interests.
On 10 March 2025 the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83 per cent of USAID programmes had been permanently cut and that the remaining 17 percent of aid programmes would be managed by the State Department, whilst USAID would be permanently dismantled.
