Urgent Action Alert: Call your member of Congress
Editor’s note: We interrupt our usual programming to share the following message, which is being circulated in the international development community related to the abrupt suspension of U.S. foreign assistance—a move which will ultimately make our country less safe, secure, and prosperous:
Please call your Members of Congress hourly and say the following:
“The administration must lift the foreign assistance stop work order before it’s too late. In 90 days no implementing partner will exist to restart any foreign assistance activities. Mass layoffs are happening and 173 U.S. small businesses are folding. The USG is not paying its bills. USAID contractors are owed hundreds of millions for work performed in November and December before the stop work order went into effect. This is illegal per the prompt payment act.
The stop work order prevents American businesses on contract with the USG to get reimbursed for ANY costs it incurs until the stop work order is lifted. These businesses DO NOT HAVE ANY CASH to pay staff salaries, leases, insurance, or security, putting American lives and U.S. property at risk. Bank lines of credit dried up the minute the stop work order was announced, as they know no reimbursements are coming. The rapid, chaotic, disastrous withdrawal we saw in Afghanistan is now happening in 100 countries simultaneously. It will make our country weaker and less influential globally. China has already won.”
Click here to find your Representative
Click here for contacting U.S. Senators
Related reading:
USAID issues blanket stop-work order, promising ‘equitable adjustments’ By Elissa Miolene on DevEx / January 29, 2025.
Organizations must “take immediate action” to pause implementation of USAID-funded activities and immediately acknowledge they’ve done so with their contracting officers at USAID.
Hundreds of USAID internal contractors put on leave, terminated amid US freeze on global aid, By Simon Lewis, Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk, on Rueters | January 29, 2025.
Hundreds of internal contractors working for the U.S. Agency for International Development are being put on unpaid leave and some are being terminated after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign aid worldwide.
No comments yet.
Add your comment