The former administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USA) says that an important funding reductions from the agency could lead to more cases of diseases such as Paralytic Polio and Malaria.
In an interview that will be broadcast on CBCs on Sunday Rosemary Barton Live, Samantha Power described the consequences of the decision by the Trump administration to impair the agency’s financing.
“There are really no words,” said Macht, who was head of the agency during the Biden Administration, the chief politician correspondent Rosemary Barton.
“The estimates are now 200,000 other cases of paralytic polio,” she said of the effects of the administration’s canceled USAID contracts.
“Malaria rises, probably up to 166,000 deaths per year.”
USAID manages the financing that provided both the United States and international partners, including Canada, for development projects around the world.
According to letters to non -governmental organizations, around 10,000 contracts with USAid were terminated last week. It is part of an unprecedented reduction in the federal government by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
According to Power, the cuts will also affect the training of girls worldwide.
“Many millions of girls will not be at school because the USAID financing has now been terminated for these programs,” she said.
Before the United States led from 2021 to 2025, Power was the US ambassador at the United Nations from 2013 to 2017.
“The government of the United States is currently acting as if we live in a so -called great isolation as if we were cut off from the rest of the world, as if there was no flight where a virus can spread in the USA,” said Power.
“(The administration is as if we manufacture all of our manufactured products here, all parts come from here … as if the United States in which we need friends will never happen anything bad.”
She said she fears that the long -held alliances of the Americans are now “marginally”.
U.S.ID workers who have lost their work received 15-minute intervals to clear out their desks on Thursday in the middle of a massive section of the widespread program. The workers were welcomed by supporters when they left the building for the last time.
USAID was founded in 1961 by former President John F. Kennedy and had long had non -partisan support.
According to the congress research service, the agency employed around 10,000 employees with about two thirds in overseas before the cuts. In 2023, the last year, for which data are available, USAID conducted more than 40 billion US dollars and did around 130 countries.
The UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that many of the affected programs are in fragile countries that are highly dependent on US help to support health systems and nutritional programs. Dujarric said that other topics, such as fighting terrorism, human and drug trade and the help of migrants, will also suffer from the cuts.
Power said it was unclear whether there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“There seems to be no feeling of remorse, some feeling of concern about the human consequences of these actions,” she said.
