TRANSCRIPT:
On the 20th of January, the news came.
The world's biggest aid donor was pausing ALL funding for 90 days.
"I was shocked. Well, I shouldn't say shocked, because we knew Donald Trump was going to do radical things. So, it wasn't a shock in that respect, the fact that he actually did it, and when we saw the scale and the rapidity of the pause, that's what was really shocking. The only word I can use to describe it is brutal. It was a brutal, abrupt stop, which has all sorts of implications for people's lives and their welfare around the world."
That's Robert Glasser, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Climate and Security Centre.
By the 24th of January, a stop-work order had been issued for all initiatives funded by U-S-A-I-D as the administration began to review all programs.
The end goal - to only fund programs that fully align with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.
We're now two thirds of the way through the 90 day pause.
The US government says it has cut 83 per cent of aid spending, although it's not clear which programs have been axed.
Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and expert say as many will lose their lives.
The Guttmacher Institute estimates an additional 8,500 women will die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth, due to the 90 day pause on funding.
Europe and Africa, where the U-S is the largest single country donor, will be hit the hardest.
And there will be global consequences due to reduced contributions to global programs, like those run by the United Nations, and the World Health Organisation.
But close to home, there has been an impact, too.
The United States is the fifth biggest donor in the Pacific - after Australia, China, Japan, and New Zealand.
Although the United States only contributed just 6 per cent of the total development funding to the Pacific in 2022, the American funding pause has stopped millions of dollars entering the region.
Teuleala Manuella Morris is the Country Manager for Live and Learn Tuvalu.
"Our main area is so much into climate change, climate resilience, environmental erosion. We have also programs into WASH, water, sanitation, and hygiene. We also work in food security programs. And with all these activities, we try to include the gender equity and disability and social inclusion programs, so that we will never leave someone behind."
Live and Learn Tuvalu is one of countless organisations across the Pacific that received some USAID funding.
Donor countries, like the United States, rarely go out and do the work themselves.
Senior Researcher at the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre, Cameron Hill, says it's a layered system.
"Most of aid is delivered through a combination of multilateral, commercial and N-G-O partners, and then those partners themselves will have partners within countries. So, there's many layers to how foreign aid is delivered, and it's a very complex business."
Often there's an overarching sponsor for a big program - these contracts are in the millions of dollars and last for years.
In this case, it is USAID.
Then, there's sort of an intermediary, an organisation which can oversee the whole of the program - which could span across multiple countries.
And then there's the actual work on the ground - often done by local N-G-Os.
The intermediary role is what Josephine Hutton was doing before the cuts.
"Our job is to partly support them with technical advice if they need support, how to access funding, how to measure their impact, how to work on communicating their work to the world, connecting them with other organizations across the Pacific so that they're not so isolated."
The $2.2 million USD program Ms Hutton was working on, was fully funded by USAID.
It included organisations in Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Kiribati and was focused on preparing communities for climate change and natural disasters through the lens of gender and disability inclusion.
"Quite quickly afterwards formal notification came to organizations, and those were notifications, basically saying any program that's with US funding has to stop immediately. Therefore, all the other organizations funded, like small Pacific organizations and Australian NGOs working across the Pacific, all had to immediately stop work. It was apparent very quickly that actually it was unlikely that many of these programs would start again."
Ms Morris says there was an immediate impact.
"I lost about five staff, two programs under the Pacific American fund."
Those programs help communities adapt to extreme weather changes, through education and training.
Residents are advised on skills including which crops to grow that can withstand extreme weather, how to develop disaster-readiness plans for households and improve water and food collection and preservation.
"I'm trying to talk to other the donor community who are interested to pick it up from there, since we have promised our communities."
The White House has said the pause in funding is to ensure it can review which programs align with the foreign policy of the Trump Administration.
Ms Hutton is not optimistic that funding programs in the Pacific is on the new U-S Government's agenda.
"A lot of organizations across Pacific are involved in the space of either climate change, adaptation, disasters, resilience, gender equality, disability inclusion, all of which it was clear, were topics that were not going to be well supported by a change of government in the US."
Dr Glasser says one cause in particular is being rejected.
"Every public servant will know that this government, this US government, doesn't want to see the words climate change."
But for the Pacific Island Nations, there is no denying the climate crisis.
"These countries probably have contributed least of any country in the world to these changes. So the irony is, the people who contribute at least are suffering the most will suffer the most, and nowhere more than in the Pacific Islands, where their very livelihoods, life, their culture, their countries are disappearing under the waves."
Tuvalu is about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.
The 26 square kilometre nation is home to around 11,000 people.
UNICEF predicts it will be the first country to become uninhabitable due to climate change, with 95 per cent of the country predicted to be underwater by the end of the century.
"It's just sad for someone to say that there's no climate change because we are actually living it."
Already, droughts are becoming more common and more intense, and cyclones more frequent.
Traditional farming relies on ground water to build pulacka pita.
Ms Morris says that is no longer viable, with rising seas bringing in saltwater.
"That's how we our people, our ancestors survived all those years and 1000s of years in such harsh environments that we have, but now, with the sea rise and regular cyclones to our islands, the. That's becomes now you can see that some of those lands are abandoned because there's no way that our elders can go down and replant our crops."
Tuvalu is now heavily reliant on imported food from Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia.
With an existential threat to Tuvalu, a treaty was signed.
The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union says Australia will continue to recognise Tuvalu's statehood and sovereignty, will come to Tuvalu's aid in natural disasters or military threats, and will allow Tuvaluans to come to Australia to live, work, and study on a special visa pathway that is being developed.
Ms Morris says Tuvaluans want to remain at home.
"No one wants to come to Australia. Our Prime Minister once was talking to us about this treaty, most of the elders around me were not happy. It's like a document in surrender, and most of our elders don't want to go. But for me, personally, is something that is a choice. I was given a choice to go to a place with dignity. And on a personal level, I would like to give that one for my child."
Dr Glasser says Tuvalu is not alone with its climate concerns.
"Probably Australia would look at the Pacific and say the number one security risk is China gaining inroads to those countries. But for Pacific Islanders, it is climate change without any doubt."
That concern around China is one of the reasons Australia has boosted its aid program in the Pacific.
It has been a particular priority of the Albanese Government - and was of interest to the US.
With a constant battle for influence in the region - there are concerns China could fill the gap left by the Unites States.
As Foreign Minister Penny Wong told Senate Estimates:
"There's a humanitarian imperative that, if you can make sure more children can grow up healthy and you can reduce the number of children dying, that's a good thing for humanity. But there is a very real national interest as well for us to ensure (1) that we maximise the development, security and stability of our region and secondly that we don't vacate the space for others to fill."
Opposition leader Peter Dutton says he's also disappointed in the move by the US.
"I think there is a place for Australia to advocate for some of that funding to return and we can do that in a respectful way with United States but I don't agree with some of the funding that they've withdrawn, and I think it is detrimental to the collective interests in the region, and I hope that there can be a discussion between our governments about a sensible pathway forward in that."
The government says it’s still assessing the impact of the cuts and has not yet allocated any additional funding to the Pacific.
On the ground, Ms Morris is looking for alternatives.
"I'm now negotiating with Australian High Commissioner to assist us. They seem to be positive, but not raising my spirit about it."
Dr Glasser says a rebrand of programs could help draw US funding.
"Right now, the bureaucrats are either trying to find a way to repackage climate like to talk about disaster risk reduction, which is different doesn't trigger the same reactions as climate. And probably to couch it in terms of national security and less humanitarian focus, than on the implications with respect to competition with China."
