President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the US Agency for International Development out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Washington's primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on January 20.
The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
"That's outrageous," said J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
"A lot of people will not survive," said Atwood, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute.
With Trump and Musk, the world's wealthiest man, leveling false accusations that its staff were criminals, dozens of USAID staff have been put on leave, hundreds of internal contractors have been laid off and life-saving programs around the globe have been left in limbo.
The administration announced on Tuesday it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAID employees globally, and recall thousands of personnel working overseas.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programs that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders, which have threatened efforts around the globe to stop the spread of disease, prevent famine and otherwise alleviate poverty.
Implementing partners of USAID are facing financial trouble on the back of stop-work orders from the State Department.
The administration's goal is to merge USAID with the State Department led by Rubio, who Trump has made acting USAID administrator. However, it is not clear that he can merge the agencies unless Congress votes to do so, since USAID was created and is funded by laws that remain in place.
USAID employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It managed more than $40 billion in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.
Sources familiar with events at the agency on Thursday said some workers had begun receiving termination notices.
The USAID website said that as of midnight on Friday, February 7, "all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs."
It said essential personnel expected to continue working would be informed by Thursday at 3 p.m. EST. (2300 EAT)
The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished. The top recipients were Ukraine, followed by Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, according to the CRS report.
