Advocates push South Carolina lawmakers to protect funding for global health programs

WASHINGTON (WCBD) – As the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. foreign aid begin to take hold across the globe, a group of South Carolinians is calling on congressional lawmakers to protect funding for critical health programs in Africa.

Trump ordered what he said would be a three-month review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue in his first day back in office on Jan. 20, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.

In February, the administration announced it would eliminate more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance worldwide.

USAID has historically delivered billions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas, which health experts say is critical to curbing the spread of HIV and malaria. The agency, which also helps to fight poverty and hunger, is credited with saving millions of lives worldwide.  

Olivia Ott, a 22-year-old from Mount Pleasant who works with Seacoast Church, has seen its impact firsthand.

“I grew up as a pastor’s kid and started taking mission trips overseas to Africa at the age of 16, and my eyes were totally just opened to the world and to hurt and brokenness and impact,” she said. “There isn’t a part of the community that [U.S. aid] won’t reach when it comes to the health of children, when it comes to education, when it comes to spiritual and emotional health.”

One or two things that can seem so small like clean water or access to food or access to education, that’s the difference of a generational change,” she continued.

Ott was one of more than 100 individuals who traveled to Washington, D.C. last month to advocate on behalf of the One Campaign, an international nonprofit that works to secure resources to promote health and economic opportunity in Africa.  

It was part of the organization’s annual Power Summit, a multi-day conference that culminates in a lobbying day on Capitol Hill. While there, Ott and others met with Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott’s offices as well as Reps. James Clyburn and Nancy Mace’s offices.  

Their request was straightforward: safeguard funding for vaccine programs and those designed to treat and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.  

According to the ONE campaign, contributions to these programs from South Carolinians alone have helped to save nearly 200,00 lives from HIV, provide more than 410,000 mosquito nets, and immunize more than 1.2 million children against deadly diseases.

The abrupt cut in funding to those programs threatens to undo decades of advancement and puts lives at risk, advocates have warned.

“Any interruption to service for things like PEPFAR costs lives, and so it’s critical that those things remain,” said Alayna Diviney, a senior at the College of Charleston.

U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has been recognized for helping change the course of AIDS globally since being introduced in 2003.

Soon after Trump put a freeze on foreign aid, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver to allow the lifesaving aid to continue. Despite that, PEPFAR funds stayed frozen.

That caught the attention of Sen. Graham, a longtime supporter of PEPFAR, who warned the administration against going “too far” with funding freezes.

“If you go too far, you’re going to lose trust in terms of actually cleaning up the place,” Graham told Dan Bishop, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, during a Senate budget hearing last month.

Diviney and Ott applauded Graham’s support for the continuation of PEPFAR and said they encouraged other South Carolina lawmakers to seek clarity from the administration on what is being cut and why.

“We’re empowering them to demand those answers from the administration,” Diviney said. “And standing up for exercising their constitutional mandate which is appropriations and exercising their oversight power to make sure that the funds, that our tax dollars that have already been appropriated, already been voted on actually make it to where they’re supposed to go and really stand up for the legacy that Congress has created of these robust, effective life-saving programs that are beacon of United States values across the world.”

The government was on track to spend about $58.4 billion on international aid programs in the 2025 fiscal year, according to January projections from the Congressional Budget Office. That would have been less than the $71.6 billion spent in fiscal year 2023 but still a small fraction of the total federal budget.

Diviney said the public tends to overestimate the percentage the U.S. spends on foreign aid and noted that the success of these programs is often measured by the absence of crises, which can lead people to think they’re no longer needed.

“A lot of the times, the metrics for these types of things being successful is nothing happening, she said. “With PEPFAR and GAVI and stuff like that, that is the metric of success, but people mistake that sometimes for it not being necessary anymore, which is completely not true.”

The pair also expressed concern about how the sudden reduction in funding could harm America’s standing in the world.  

Foreign assistance offered the U.S. a source of “soft power” — allowing it to cultivate goodwill, build alliances, and counter adversaries in a bid to shore up national security without having to dispatch troops, weapons or other more coercive measures.   

“When we take a step back, there’s a void there, as far as global influence goes, and we think that’s really important that we remain a leader in that respect,” said Diviney, adding that foreign aid is more than about “handouts.”

“There’s so much opportunity and potential there for partnerships and investment and and creating a more just world where Africa is an equal player,” she continued. “And that helps Americans, you know, economically and just generally, as much money that goes into Africa right now, it’s actually more money that comes out.”

“The end goal isn’t just aid unto aid unto aid unto aid, but actually unto trade,” Ott said. “We want to see Africa as a continent at large, to become an economic partner.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.