Norwegian Refugee Council halts aid in over 20 countries after USAID cuts

The Norwegian Refugee Council announced on Monday that it has suspended emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of people across nearly 20 countries due to the Trump administration’s freeze on USAID funds.

One of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations for displaced people, the NRC warned it may be forced to halt life-saving programs unless it receives overdue payments from the US government.

“For the first time in our history, we will have to suspend ongoing and urgent humanitarian work for hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 20 countries affected by wars, disasters and displacement,” the organization said in a statement on its website.

“We are being forced to lay off aid workers around the world,” it added.

While the NRC did not specify all affected countries, it confirmed that Ukraine was among them, where a planned February aid distribution for 57,000 people in frontline communities had to be canceled.

The organization welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s waiver for life-saving programs but noted that pending payments had not resumed.

“We currently have millions of dollars in outstanding payment requests to the US government,” the NRC said. “Without an immediate solution, we may be forced to shut down US-funded humanitarian programs by the end of February.”

Such a suspension would significantly impact vulnerable countries like Burkina Faso and war-torn Sudan, where the NRC provides clean water and other essential aid.

USAID is one of the NRC’s largest donors. Last year alone, US-supported programs helped more than 1.5 million people.

Since its founding during World War II, the NRC has provided food, water, shelter, education and counseling to displaced communities. It currently operates in 40 countries with around 15,000 staff. In 2022, the organization won the Hilton Humanitarian Prize, one of the most prestigious international awards in the humanitarian aid field.

In the Middle East, the NRC has assisted over a million people in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen. It operates in 20 countries in Africa, including Somalia, Mali and Libya.

Last month, Rubio issued a waiver allowing life-saving programs to continue after a 90-day freeze on all USAID funding. However, confusion over the waiver’s criteria created uncertainty about which organizations were eligible for continued support, Reuters reported.

Responding to criticism about the freeze’s impact, Rubio insisted last week that life-saving programs remained exempt.

“I issued a blanket waiver stating that if a program provides food, medicine or urgent aid, it is not included in the freeze,” he said.