The Most Egregious Programs and Projects Funded by USAID

Blaze Media has compiled a listing of wasteful and potentially fraudulent spending by USAID. This is Blaze’s listing of “the most egregious” spending, but Blaze makes clear there are many more examples beyond the “most egregious.”

You can read this listing on Blaze’s website, and we copy it below, with all credit to Blaze Media. We have retain Blaze Media’s hyperlinks in which it shows the source for each of its assertions:

DEI

• $45 million to diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma. The DOGE reported that seven “DEI-related” USAID contracts valued at $375 million were canceled.
• $1.5 million “to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities, by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people.” The program aimed to “expand opportunities” and “reduce[] workplace discrimination.”
• $1.5 million to “art for inclusion of people with disabilities.“
• $19 million for two separate “inclusion” programs in Vietnam.
• $1.3 million to “provide Arab and Jewish [Israeli] residents … with a collaborative platform, photography skills.” The program offered participants “mixed identity photography workshops.”

LGBT

• $2 million for “activity to strengthen trans-led organizations to deliver gender-affirming health care” in Guatemala.
• $37.7 million to study HIV among “sex workers (SWS), their clients, and transgender (TG) people” in South Africa.
• $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists about “gender-sensitive reporting.“
• $1.1 million to “empower the LGBTI community” and “protect them from violence and discrimination” in Armenia.
• $1.5 million to “upscale LGBT rights advocacy” in Jamaica.

Climate hysteria

• $520 million for consultant-driven environmental, social, and governance investments in Africa, according to the DOGE.
• $2.5 million to build electric vehicle charging stations and other related infrastructure in Vietnam. Through the USAID Vietnam Urban Energy Security project, the agency has “provide[d] funding and technical assistance for innovative solutions that address urban energy and environment issues.”
• $1 million to assist disabled people in Tajikistan to become “climate leaders.“
• $24 million for a “green transportation and logistics program” in Georgia.

Cultural & educational propaganda

• $20 million on “Ahlan Simsim,” a new “Sesame Street” show in Iraq. According to a now-archived version of USAID’s website, the children’s series was “designed to promote inclusion, mutual respect, and understanding across ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups.”
• $6 million for tourism in Egypt, according to the White House. Corporate media outlets were quick to “fact-check” a press release linked by the Trump administration, arguing that it did not mention that the funds would be used for tourism purposes. However, USAID has invested $100 million in taxpayer dollars that have either directly or indirectly boosted Egypt’s tourism, including an $8.6 million campaign in 2022.
• $1.2 million to construct a “state-of-the-art 440 seat auditorium” for the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C.
• $31.5 million on “counseling, organizational resilience, wellness, and work-life support” for USAID employees, Fox News reported.
• $29 million to “improve the skills of young and female Egyptians in the manufacturing and service sectors,” Fox News reported.
• $4.5 million to “advance integrity and accountability in the information space, and build societal resilience in the face of disinformation” in Kazakhstan.
• $6 million to “transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles.”

Foreign policy & security risks

• $160 million to update payment systems in Afghanistan.
• $1 million to a Hamas-linked charity in Gaza.
• $15 million for condoms and oral contraceptives in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
• $4.67 million to EcoHealth Alliance, a research organization that funded the Wuhan lab linked to the COVID-19 virus.
• $330 million to fund alternative development projects that failed to “deter farmers and [drug] traffickers from cultivating” poppy plants, thereby “inadvertently” fueling heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan.

The federal government gave “hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria,” according to a November report from the Washington Times.

Based on reporting from the Washington Examiner, the White House stated that the government provided “hundreds of thousands of dollars for a nonprofit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even after an inspector general launched an investigation.” It also allegedly funded “print[ing] ‘personalized’ contraceptive birth control devices in developing countries.”

Further, USAID awarded $1.2 billion to undisclosed recipients, according to DOGE.

To provide context for USAID’s spending, in fiscal year 2023, the agency managed a roughly $43.8 billion budget.

Outside USAID, the federal government also made questionable funding decisions through the State Department, providing $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland, $35,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, and $22,231 on a “USAID Social Media Influencers Campaign.“

While the USAID-funded initiatives listed above are alarming, they represent only a small fraction of the agency’s total spending. We will continue to update this tracker as more shocking revelations emerge.

All of the above is credited to Blaze Media.

At American Vantage point we have previously written about what has been uncovered at USAID, here, here, and here.