The United States Assistance Agency (USAID) has recalled its staff from around the world. USAID has recently issued a notice directing the repatriation of US citizens directly employed by it. USAID issued a notice on its website to recall the employee.

In the notice, it is said that except for certain employees working in their offices around the world, administrative leave has been given from next Friday night.

"Effective Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. (local time), all directly assigned USAID personnel worldwide will be placed on administrative leave, although this directive will not apply to personnel with critical mission, key leadership, and specially designated program responsibilities." They can continue to work. More information about these employees will be given by Thursday, February 6,” the notification said.

In the case of USAID employees working outside the United States, the agency will coordinate with the mission and the US Department of State to prepare a retirement plan including the necessary legal provisions. According to this plan, the contracts of Personal Service Contractors (PSCs) and International Service Contractors (ISCs) that are not required will be terminated. The agency will bear all expenses including travel management, expenses, and return to the United States within 30 days," the USAID statement said.

It is also mentioned in the notice that even if the employees are instructed to return to their country within 30 days, the necessary facilities will be provided to the employees who have various difficulties including personal, family, security etc.

"The agency will decide to extend the return travel period on a case-by-case basis in case of personal or family difficulties, safety or transportation concerns or other reasons," the notification said. The notice also states that USAID will give special consideration to its employee dependents for school period, personal or family health, pregnancy or other special reasons. USAID said that more information will be provided soon about the process of making a request regarding the inconvenience caused.

In the US, Donald Trump issued an executive order to suspend all foreign subsidies for 90 days after taking office as president. After that, USAID wrote a letter to the Ministry of Finance, non-governmental organizations and non-profit companies and informed them that all programs run with grants have been suspended for the time being.

Based on the same letter, Ministry of Finance has already stated that all the programs will be affected through USAID, except Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Nepal. Although the Ministry of Finance has instructed to suspend the program run by USAID, it has not mentioned anything about the employees working in that organization.

USAID has already sent a letter to the Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations to suspend all the programs run under its grant. Based on USAID's letter, the federation has also written to its subordinate organizations to stop the program. But the federation has not said anything about what will happen to the employees working in those organizations. Ram Prasad Subedi, the president of Federation of Non-Governmental Organizations, said that they do not have the exact data of how many organizations and employees are in the program run with the

grant. However, he said that more than 1,500 employees of NGOs and INGOs running on USAID grants will lose their jobs.

There is no latest updated data about this. However, how many organizations are directly affected by the USAID grant freeze, and how many employees do those organizations have? We have sent a survey form to all organizations to collect complete information about which programs have problems," he said. Therefore, we do not have the exact data of the organizations affected by the suspension of the American grant.' According to the Ministry of Finance, there are very few US grant programs in Nepal that are included in the budget. USAID had last agreed on a five-year strategic partnership with the Government of Nepal on May 15, 2022 with a grant of 659 million US dollars.