Independent media outlets and journalist unions and representative organisations are among the countless international development projects and programs impacted by extreme and abrupt cuts to US international development funding globally following President Donald Trump’s executive order to freeze all US foreign aid in January 2025. Since then, it has been reported that more than 90% of foreign aid contracts and some $60 billion in funding have been cut from programs around the world, as well as around 10,000 direct contracts with the USAID.

While the IFJ is not directly funded by USAID funds, many of its 35 affiliates in the Asia-Pacific region do receive support. In a survey of its Asia-Pacific affiliate organisations conducted last month, IFJ AP found that 86 per cent of surveyed affiliates were either directly or indirectly impacted by the abrupt suspension of USAID funding. Among the key impacts expected were suspension or discontinuation of critical media programs, scaling back of vital industry development activities, union/program staffing cuts, consolidation or closure of offices, further deteriorations in political freedom, independent media house closures, and journalist organisational collapses.

IFJ affiliates reported that discontinued programs included funding for quality journalism in Afghanistan; responsible reporting on health rights and child marriage prevention in Bangladesh; and strengthening media ethics, access to information, and empowering freedom and inclusion through Nepal’s media. In the weeks following the announcement, IFJ has monitored reports, including cases of forced return of funds in some countries.

According to the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), the Trump administration’s executive order has frozen at least USD 268 million in funding for independent media and access to information in over 30 countries, with the indirect impacts reaching far wider. Potential unfettered access to USAID systems by members of the private sector posed severe security risks for journalists worldwide, it said, with the vacuum potentially encouraging renewed attacks and threats towards independent media.

The IFJ’s union strengthening and gender equity programs in Pakistan, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), while not falling under the USAID order, are also currently involuntarily paused because of the freezing of NED’s funds sourced from the United States Congress. NED announced last week it had launched legal action against the US government and cabinet officials for withholding $239 million in congressional appropriations. NED has put about 75 per cent of its staff on unpaid leave, and about 1,800 grant projects have received no money since late January, including the IFJ’s Pakistan project which supports thousands of journalists across Pakistan each year. NED was established 42 years ago during the Reagan era and has had bipartisan support over decades for its work promoting democracy abroad.

“This situation is unprecedented and has forced us to make the painful decision to suspend all partner support and furlough the majority of our staff,” said NED president and CEO, Damon Wilson, in a statement to its partners last week.

With the immense challenges posed by US government’s rapid withdrawal from the media development landscape, the IFJ and key media development organisations are at a critical crossroad and a point of reflection in terms of the future of media support and the global strategy to sustain strong, independent journalism and journalist unions as the collective voice of journalists.

The IFJ said:“Now more than ever, we are encouraging journalist unions and leaders to strengthen and explore diverse funding models and strengthen their membership bases to buttress against these types of huge and unpredictable geo-political shifts. Building membership and collecting revenue from the collective base must always be the fundamental when it comes to strengthening unions.”

The IFJ has also urged the international community, including governments and other donor organisations, to step in and support vital media development initiatives globally, and commended organisations such as the Australian government, which is supporting Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA to provide much needed funding support for trade union development in South East Asia and the Pacific.

The IFJ strongly endorsed the “real-world impact” of funding programs like NED, which has sustained and supported freedom of expression and decent working conditions for media workers across the region, most recently in Pakistan. Over the past five years it has worked to strengthen union capacities to lobby on a nationwide epidemic of wage theft and helped support and strengthen an active network of women working in the media to build their voices, representation and leadership in media houses and in decision-making roles in unions and press clubs.

The IFJ said: “The Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze and shuttering of USAID will have a profound and long-lasting effect on humanitarian programs globally – including on the fragile media landscape in the Global South. The IFJ calls on the international community to again acknowledge the vital role independent media plays in these uncertain times by swiftly stepping in to provide much-need funds to continue important human rights initiatives in the media sector.”