The Agony And Death Left By USAID's Exit From Myanmar

Beyond closed hospitals, aid withdrawal stripped away women's last defenses against violence, disease and death. Before funding ended, the WLB and similar organizations delivered basic healthcare and protection to displaced women and girls.

Now, lacking US support, they've laid off workers, shut outreach programs and eliminated lifesaving services, exposing women to exploitation, maternal complications, and preventable deaths.

Programs that once provided sexual and reproductive care, gender-based violence protection and health education vanished overnight. In camps like Mae La, pregnant women can no longer get emergency obstetric care; IV drips sit unused because clinics lack staff. Newborns, malnourished mothers and survivors of assault are left without care in overcrowded, often violent camps.

The human cost is staggering. Cancelling over 10,000 humanitarian contracts meant specialized services for women – decades in the making – disappeared within weeks. Projects protecting 300,000 children and women from abuse went defunct .

The reinstated“global gag rule,” forbidding any NGO even to mention abortion, including in rape cases, deepened the crisis for women in war zones and camps. This wasn't a freeze; it was an entirely preventable withdrawal of dignity and survival for some of the world's most vulnerable women.

If the aid freeze devastated Burma's health system, the March 2025 earthquake delivered the death blow. The 7.7-magnitude quake shattered hospitals, cut off aid routes and left families digging through rubble with bare hands.

With USAID dismantled and humanitarian teams gutted, the US offered a $9 million donation and a few advisors – a faint substitute for the rescue teams once deployed within hours. Myanmar's collapsing health system buckled completely: clinics crumbled, cholera spread, thousands lacked shelter, clean water or medical care.

The fallout was immediate and catastrophic for women and girls who now face trauma, untreated injuries and deadly disease outbreaks. Aid cuts didn't just abandon Myanmar: they left it behind at its worst. And once again, women have shouldered the greatest burden.

Years of slow progress in maternal health, infectious disease control and women's rights have been lost in months. Hospitals that once provided life-saving services stand walled off. Mobile clinics have been dismantled, emergency surgeries canceled and vulnerable populations stripped bare.

Women and girls now face exploitation , untreated medical complications, and preventable deaths. Unless aid is swiftly and sustainably restored, these consequences will echo long after this crisis, wounding a nation that has already endured too much.

But the crisis is far from over. The situation is compounded by new disasters as monsoon rains arrived early this year. Extensive flooding has submerged villages and refugee camps in northern regions like Sagaing and Kachin, destroying bridges, farmland and critical infrastructure.

The floods have left thousands more displaced and cut off from aid, with women and girls bearing the brunt of shortages in food, clean water and medical supplies. Despite these escalating needs, humanitarian access remains obstructed by military blockades and administrative restrictions.

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UN agencies report that only a fraction of required funding for women's health and protection has been secured, leaving critical gaps in sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence response. Health workers continue to risk their lives to deliver care under constant threat of attack, while preventable diseases resurge and maternal mortality soars.

Myanmar's collapse is a warning we can't ignore. The disintegration of women's healthcare exposes the risks of politicized aid systems, but it also offers a chance to learn. While US policymakers cited governance concerns and fears of aid diversion as justification for cuts.

But such reasoning ignores the reality that humanitarian programs like maternal care, clean water and cholera response operate independently of military structures and are verifiably tracked.

Reconstruction must be more than reorganizing services; it must rethink aid as resilient, locally driven and sustainable. That means investing in cross-border aid channels, funding grassroots women-led organizations like the WLB and sustaining flexible, decentralized systems that bypass state actors entirely.

Supporting groups like the IRC is the only way to ensure we don't repeat these errors. Their work isn't charity; it's a lifeline for women whose survival depends on reliable, unpoliticized aid.

Shiv Patel is a researcher with the US Campaign for Burma, where he has authored briefs and pieces on healthcare access for ethnic minorities and conflict-affected regions like Rakhine State.

Karen Ames is a human rights activist and the managing director of the US Campaign for Burma with more than 10 years of experience working on Burma.

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