Unravelling progress: how US foreign aid cuts undermine global efforts to end violence against women

Abstract

An overlooked consequence of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of US foreign and humanitarian assistance has been its devastating impacts on efforts to prevent and respond to violence against women (VAW). This targeted defunding threatens the progress made to provide lifesaving services, implement vital prevention programs, track prevalence, and keep gender equality and VAW on the global agenda. Cuts to research threaten to undermine the field’s capacity to generate evidence on what works to address violence and conduct evidence-informed advocacy. In this comment we call for renewed investment and commitment to support VAW prevention programming, services and research.

Background

Since January 2025, the Trump Administration has systematically dismantled US foreign and humanitarian assistance, with widespread, increasingly well-documented harms to global health and humanitarian response [6]. An overlooked consequence is the devastating impact on efforts to prevent and respond to violence against women (VAW). VAW is both a public health and human rights concern, with 30–40% of women in some settings experiencing physical or sexual intimate partner violence in the past year [8]. Despite its profound health, social, and economic consequences, this defunding threatens to rapidly unravel progress in the VAW field—jeopardising essential services, weakening prevention programmes, and increasing risks of violence. These harms will fall disproportionately on women, children, and LGBTIQ + people, particularly those living with disabilities and in poverty, conflict or humanitarian crisis [10].

Why foreign aid is vital to reducing violence against women

Women’s rights organisations (WROs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and international development actors play a central role in preventing and responding to VAW. Many—especially in the Global South—depend heavily on international donor funding to sustain feminist movements, survivor services, norm-change initiatives, and prevention programming. This funding has long been inadequate: between 2018 and 2023, donors invested an estimated US$410 million annually in VAW prevention—just 0.2% of the US$204 billion spent on development assistance in 2022 [3]. Yet even limited investments have generated a strong evidence base, including interventions shown to substantially reduce violence within three to four years [5].

Despite congressional appropriations, the US executive branch has sharply curtailed global investments in HIV, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and humanitarian response [1]—all critical to preventing violence and supporting VAW programmes. The US has also withdrawn funding from UN agencies central to the global VAW response, including UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, and WHO.1 European governments have similarly reduced overseas development assistance, often targeting gender equality and SRHR, with cuts accelerating following US actions. For example, the UK plans to reduce aid to 0.3% of GNI by 2027 and cut funding for women and girls by 42%, despite being the largest bilateral investor in generating rigorous evidence on preventing violence against women and children [2].2

Funding cuts are devastating prevention and response efforts

The harm stems not only from the scale of the cuts but from their abrupt implementation. What began as a temporary “pause” quickly became the cancellation of most USAID contracts, leaving organisations without time to secure alternative funding or close programmes ethically. Providers were forced to restrict or terminate essential services, including medical care, mental health and psychosocial support, legal aid, and crisis centres. Cuts to livelihoods and economic empowerment programmes increase women’s vulnerability to violence and exploitation, while other cuts undermine advocacy for laws, policies, and accountability mechanisms. Although some funding was later reinstated—primarily for food aid and select health services—the abrupt cancellation of contracts caused lasting damage, including paused services, lost infrastructure, and weakened institutional capacity.

WROs and local NGOs—including in humanitarian settings—have been especially hard hit, with many facing existential threats due to reliance on USAID funding. A post-defunding survey found that 78% of 45 women’s and feminist funds reported losses totalling US$65.3 million, with nearly half of funded organisations at risk of closure [7]. Similarly, 63 grantees of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls reported negative impacts from the US funding freeze, including service reductions (78%), programme suspension or termination (73%), staff layoffs (59%), and cash-flow crises (35%) [9]. Larger international NGOs have also been affected, resulting in the loss of specialised violence-prevention expertise that is difficult to replace.

US cuts have also weakened domestic VAW prevention and response. The Trump administration has targeted research and programming on VAW, gender inequality, and health equity, despite longstanding bipartisan support. Most federal violence-prevention capacity at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was eliminated, with approximately two-thirds of the Division of Violence Prevention staff disbanded.3 Federal cuts have contributed to service reductions nationwide, threatening rape crisis centres, shelters, 24-h hotlines, and sexual-assault forensic services. Concurrent reductions in housing and social protection risk further increasing women’s exposure to violence.

Harms to research on violence against women

The Trump administration’s defunding of global and domestic research—particularly intersectional research—poses severe long-term risks to the VAW field. The cancellation of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) programme halted or disrupted surveys in 25 countries and weakened a core source of comparable data across more than 90 low- and middle-income countries. Emergency bridge funding in mid-2025 from the Gates Foundation and others has enabled some surveys to finish and kept the data archive accessible, but this remains a temporary solution. Additional restrictions and threats to university funding further undermine the field’s ability to generate evidence, train researchers, and support evidence-based advocacy.

Outlook

This BMC Public Health special issue on family violence prevention arrives at a moment of profound risk to the global VAW ecosystem. Prevention and response efforts are being scaled back despite growing need, while funding cuts embolden anti-rights movements. A survey of nearly 1,000 organisations found that 34% experienced explicit pushback on gender equality programming following the US funding freeze.4

This moment demands urgent adaptation, including renewed investment from bilateral, philanthropic, and alternative funding sources; greater domestic financing by governments in the Global South; and re-imagined international funding models grounded in equity, tax justice, and local decision-making. Sustained investment in evidence generation, prevention, and movement-building is essential to reduce violence at scale, improve the lives of women and children affected by violence, and deliver long-term gains for health, development, and peace.

Collaboration, collective care, and solidarity are urgently needed across movements and sectors—including with SRHR, HIV, and humanitarian actors. Field-building efforts should dismantle siloes between those working to address VAW and violence against children, leveraging shared expertise and resources to address common drivers of violence against women, adolescent girls, and children. As colleagues have cautioned, we must “find ways to resist together, lest we fall separately, one by one” [4].

Authors’ contributions

ES, KD, RL and LH contributed to collecting and documenting evidence, tracking developments, writing sections of and reviewing the entire Commentary.

Funding

This research was not supported by any sponsor or funder.

Data availability

We do not have any data outside the submitted Commentary.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.