Surveying the Food Aid Ecosystem: Six Months Post-USAID

The 2025 United States (U.S.) foreign aid freeze triggered the most significant humanitarian funding shift in decades. Billions of dollars in cuts, abrupt stop-work orders, and inconsistent exemptions affected programs across more than 70 countries. Thousands of contracts were cancelled, staff were laid off, and local partners were left without warning or resources. These disruptions created confusion and broken commitments at every level of the system. Yet while the immediate fallout has dominated headlines, the deeper story is what comes next. The collapse of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a predictable funder, convener, and information hub has likely disrupted the backbone of global humanitarian coordination. This moment represents not only a funding challenge but a structural transformation of how aid is organized, delivered, and sustained. Our interviews with more than 20 stakeholders across the food aid and assistance ecosystem reveal that, as of summer 2025: • Trust relationships were fractured. Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), abandoned midproject without resources, may be reluctant to partner again under U.S. government funding. • Coordination systems dissolved. Formal forums like the Food Aid Consultative Group ceased functioning, leaving organizations to rely on ad hoc backchannels and personal networks. • Programming priorities have narrowed. Agricultural development support has been broadly curtailed, leaving in place short-term in-kind food aid and some humanitarian assistance • Peer-to-peer networks are evolving. Organizations that once worked through formal networks convened by USAID, the United Nations, and others are increasingly sharing information and advocacy strategies through informal channels. These findings demonstrate that the humanitarian ecosystem is not simply experiencing temporary disruption, it is reconfiguring. The pathways of funding, information, and cooperation that defined the aid sector for decades are giving way to a thinner, more fragmented system. The urgent question is not only what was lost in 2025, but how humanitarian organizations will operate with each other and with communities going forward. Understanding these shifts is critical for funders, governments, academics, and practitioners who must adapt their strategies to a new aid landscape. To meet this need, our research group has launched a systematic, real-time pulse survey of organizations across the humanitarian and development ecosystem. This effort is designed to rapidly capture changes that traditional monitoring tools cannot. Without such documentation, today’s lessons risk disappearing into anecdotes, leaving future policy vulnerable to repeating the same fragilities. The story of 2025 is not only one of crisis, but of crossroads. If we act now to capture and analyze these changes, we can help shape a more resilient, equitable, and evidence-driven aid system for the years ahead.