The Weekly Pulse
|
News From Organizations and Coalitions in Advocacy for Children and Young People Globally
Volume 259
January 8, 2026 Quick Summary
Children’s advocates urge Congress to protect “power of the purse: On December 19, nearly three dozen organizations in the Children’s Budget Coalition sent a letter urging Congress to protect its constitutional “power of the purse” and prevent any unilateral executive action to defer or impound funds that Congress appropriated by including strong guardrails in FY 2026 appropriations legislation.“Federal appropriations bills signed by the president are laws detailing congressional priorities that include children’s health, nutrition, education, safety, and well-being,” said the letter to leaders of the House and Senate. “Allowing executive agencies to override or ignore appropriations laws …ignores Congress’ Article I authority. Further, this blatant disregard for Congress’ power of the purse threatens both democratic accountability and the stability of vital programs that millions of children and families rely on to afford their everyday basic needs.” New US humanitarian aid model: On December 29, the Trump Administration announced a new mechanism for delivering humanitarian assistance with a pledge of $2 billion to the UN. (Read more: The Hill, The Guardian, New York Times, PBS News) While the US will remain the largest international humanitarian assistance donor with this pledge, US contributions to the UN have declined substantially in recent years, from a peak of $17.2 billion in 2022. The pledge will be delivered by a new funding structure, under which the funds will be channeled through an umbrella fund run by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and distributed through a series of “country-level policy agreements” that will “ensure alignment with American interests and priorities.” Seventeen priority countries were identified, and Jeremy Lewin, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, said that further countries will be added as more money is added to the mechanism. Yemen, Afghanistan, and Gaza will not receive US funding under the new mechanism, but the Administration plans to deliver assistance to Gaza under a separate scheme. PBS News reports that the Trump Administration claims that “ this new streamlined process will eliminate what they argue is the woke ideology in humanitarian aid, the gender ideology, that climate change -- that, in fact, no aid can go directly to climate-related projects.” Jeremy Konyndyk, President of Refugees International, said, “With the new funding structure, I think there are arguments, good arguments to say that that could, if it's done right, be a pretty efficient way to deliver aid and arguably more efficient than some of the traditional ways of funneling it through this whole landscape of individual U.N. agencies.” He continued, “However, that really pales in comparison to what looks like a massive cut in U.S. humanitarian assistance...So, if this $2 billion is the end of the story and it's all the U.S. is going to provide, that is catastrophic, frankly.” Israel bars 37 aid organizations from Gaza and West Bank: On December 30, the Israeli government revoked the licenses of 37 international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working in Gaza and the West Bank, saying that they failed to meet requirements under new registration rules. The organizations include Action Aid, CARE, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam Novib, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and World Vision. (Read more: BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post.) Earlier in December, Save the Children had warned that four of five children in Gaza face “catastrophic levels of hunger” in 2026. On the day the ban was announced, UNICEF had cited recent child deaths due to a lack of safe shelters in extreme winter conditions and warned that conditions would deteriorate. In response to the ban, UN officials and NGOs issued a joint statement saying, “The consequences for vulnerable children, women and men, will be devastating.” Fifty-three INGOs issued a sign-on letter calling for a halt to the deregistration, noting that “INGOs deliver more than half of all food assistance in Gaza, run or support 60 percent of field hospitals, implement nearly three-quarters of shelter and non-food item activities, and provide all treatment for children with severe acute malnutrition.” (See also coverage from Health Policy Watch, the MSF press statement, and the Joint Statement of 10 European Foreign Ministers.) UNICEF warns of worsening sexual violence against children in the DRC: On December 30, UNICEF released a new report indicating that more than 35,000 cases of child rape and sexual assault were recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the first nine months of 2025, with adolescent girls the most affected. UNICEF USA said, “Sexual violence against children is endemic, systemic, and worsening,” and that the true toll is likely far higher due to under-reporting. They note, “insecurity and global funding cuts have forced many UNICEF-supported safe spaces, mobile clinics, and community-based protection programs to scale back or close. By mid-2025, only 23 percent of gender-based violence interventions were funded – down from 48 percent in 2022 – putting hundreds of thousands of children, including 300,000 in conflict-affected eastern regions, at risk of losing access to life-saving support.” US global education funding: Devex reported on January 6 that advocates say there are reasons to be hopeful that the US government will restart funding for global education programs in 2026, after barely any of the nearly $1 billion allocated for fiscal year 2025 was expended. The article states, “Among the reasons to be positive, according to Anna Roberts, director of government relations at the Basic Education Coalition, are job ads posted by the State Department for foreign aid staff, a better-than-expected 2026 appropriations bill from the House of Representatives, and the State Department’s appointment of a special envoy for Best Future Generations to oversee initiatives impacting the well-being of children both in the U.S. and globally.” (The FY26 appropriations bill for National Security, the Department of State, and Related Programs was introduced in July by the House but has not yet been finalized.) Earlier, on December 23, the Global Campaign for Education-US marked the one-year anniversary of the reauthorization of the Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act, which reaffirms bipartisan support for prioritizing U.S. foreign assistance that expands access to quality basic education around the world. Giulia McPherson, Executive Director of GCE-US, said, “Reauthorization of the READ Act affirmed the United States’ commitment to global education equity. But a law is only as strong as its implementation. Over the last year, instead of strengthening education abroad we have witnessed the unraveling of U.S. foreign assistance and the termination of essential education programs. This puts at risk the futures of countless children and ignores the clear mandate Congress set out in the READ Act.” World Vision urges support for child protection in Venezuela: On January 3, World Vision issued a call to the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to protect vulnerable families and children, noting that the US actions have escalated the needs of five million people facing hunger inside Venezuela and seven million refugees and displaced people across neighboring countries. “Millions of Venezuelans dream of returning home, yet they face severe challenges in accessing basic services such as health, education, nutrition and child protection,” said Joao Diniz, Regional Leader, at World Vision in Latin America and the Caribbean. “In times of uncertainty, children are the most at risk. We must ensure their psychosocial and physical protection.” Impact of foreign assistance cuts on children: Several organizations and news outlets have recently reported on the impact of U.S. and other foreign assistance cuts on children. The reporting and analysis highlight severe and life-threatening consequences, rapid reversal of decades of progress, and increasing threats to the well-being of generations to come:
SPOTLIGHT
2025 in review The turning of the year prompted reflections on the devastating impact that US foreign assistance cuts have had around the world and where we go from here:
EVENTS
LEARN MORE Blogs and articles
Papers, reports, and resources
Opportunities
Watch & Listen
|
ARCHIVED NEWSLETTERS
|