The Geopolitics of Aid Cuts Are Reshaping Women’s Safety Across the Middle East and North Africa
The year 2025 saw an unexpected blow to U.S. development assistance. Beginning on Trump’s first day in office, he immediately signed an executive order calling for a review of all U.S. foreign aid and freezing existing payments and services. Six months later, on July 1, 2025, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ceased all operations and the remaining functions merged into the U.S. Department of State.
But the funding cuts were not only seen and felt in the United States. Other major donors, such as France and Germany, have also reduced their foreign aid by 40% and 50%, respectively. The result of this global reduction in funding streams for nonprofit work has been felt particularly by women’s organizations worldwide.
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), USAID accounted for roughly 27% of all bilateral development and humanitarian aid. Losing nearly a third of that support has put many programs at risk of scaling back or shutting down entirely. Women’s organizations—already operating on limited resources—have felt these cuts most acutely.
In MENA, nearly 4 in 5 women-led or women’s rights organizations have been impacted significantly from the reductions in foreign assistance. The same percentage have been forced to lay off staff. Forty percent of women’s organizations may be forced to close within a year at current funding levels, and another 30% of women’s organizations are uncertain of their operational future. These operational cuts have not only resulted in a shift to short-term life-saving or emergency services only but have also put the long-term viability of many of these organizations in jeopardy.
Many of the affected organizations have spent decades tackling gender-based violence (GBV) in the MENA region, a pervasive reality that continues to endanger the lives of women and girls. According to the World Bank, 40% of women in the MENA region have experienced GBV in their lifetime. While many MENA governments have shown more efforts to address violence against girls and women in the last few years, there are still gaps that remain in place between reformed laws and implementation. Further, programs addressing GBV are partially or wholly funded by international donors — rarely by domestic governments, which renders these aid cuts facing women's organizations even more severe.
Some GBV-focused programs have had to close entirely. UN Women reported that women’s and girls’ safe spaces have been forced to close in Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestine, which resulted in cutting off critical services for 300,00 women and girls in Yemen, 90,000 in Gaza, and 30,000 in Lebanon. Hiba Abdulwahhab, independent researcher and Executive Director of the NGO Middle Eastern Women’s Organization, said that a cultural exchange program with a sub-focus on women’s leadership was paused due to funding cuts.
“These programs were transformative. They opened space for global dialogue, critical thinking, and empowerment especially for young women from conflict-affected areas who rarely have access to such opportunities,” said Abdulwahhab.
To better understand the new GBV-combatting ecosystem in the MENA region and the shifting strategies of the women’s organizations in this space, we interviewed five women leaders from across the region whose work has focused on women’s rights, entrepreneurship and humanitarianism.
Shifting Strategies
Many GBV focused programs, especially in conflict-affected areas, have had to resort to short-term, donor-driven programming instead of the long-term interventions they had in place. Lynn Zovighian, an entrepreneur and award-winning humanitarian, said that in Lebanon—even with the re-launch of the Office of the First Lady and the renewed National Committee of Lebanese Women—“emergencies such as war, injustice, and impunity are still taking precedence over women and family rights.” Similarly, in Iraq, many NGOs shifted from long-term empowerment and protection programs to short-term services that provide immediate relief.
In other cases, NGOs are increasingly reliant on volunteers. Abdulwahhab noted that in Iraq, many organizations now depend on unpaid support to keep basic services running. Through her own NGO, she helped advance the Yazidi Survivors Law—passed in March 2021 to provide reparations to survivors of ISIS crimes—by translating its English-language documents herself after budget cuts left the office unable to hire a translator.
As a result, many NGOs have had to rework their programs to remain relevant and simply to keep operating. Bassant Hassib, a political scientist focused on gender and cybersecurity, said that organizations like UN Women and UNDP have started to integrate GBV as a cross-cutting subcategory rather than dedicate programming to GBV as an independent pillar.
UN Women has begun emphasizing the broader ripple effects of its projects—such as women’s economic empowerment or support for women entrepreneurs—rather than dedicating programming specifically to gender-based violence. Zarqa Parvaz, a political sociologist and gender scholar, echoed this shift, noting that UN Women now appears centered on peacebuilding in conflict zones and that GBV, among other issues, “has taken a backseat.” Abdulwahhab said that NGOs are responding to this and “NGOs are “reframing women’s rights not only as a human rights issue, but as a core element of governance, stability, and social cohesion” in order to keep women’s issues visible and politically relevant.
Nermeen Murad, a MENA gender expert who has led multiple donor-funded initiatives in Jordan, confirmed this political shift. She said a new regional feminist narrative is emerging—one “rooted in local political realities” that gives women agency rather than casting them as beneficiaries, which many felt was the hallmark of earlier Western donor models.
Further, Murad noted that many NGOs today are “developing new income mechanisms to survive,” building hybrid revenue models. Some examples include ABAAD in Lebanon, which now offers paid safeguarding and GBV training to the private sector and municipalities. Sawa Foundation in Palestine has explored fee-based counseling for Palestinians abroad. Several Jordanian NGOs are experimenting with social enterprise models including women-led cooperatives, vocational clusters, and paid training units. Also, in Tunisia, feminist groups are relying more on membership contributions or small recurring donations. Murad adds that these new strategies “do not replace donor funding obviously, but they are steps toward greater autonomy.”
Lessons Learned
Our interviews with the women leaders have highlighted a number of lessons learned that can help guide the journey forward for GBV programs, funding and the future of many of the dedicated women’s organizations in the MENA region.
Institutionalize GBV funding within national budgets and integrate GBV as a cross-cutting objective in all programs to ensure continuity even when donor priorities shift.
Localization and investment in community-led initiatives are essential. International agencies should support—not replace—local networks.
Prevention of GBV is not optional. It must be embedded in humanitarian and development frameworks, not treated as a luxury or add-on.
Effective GBV strategies must be intersectional, addressing governance failures, insecurity, and systemic inequality. And,
Diversify funding sources, build regional solidarity, and promote autonomy from politicized aid to ensure GBV response sustainability.
Engaging MENA Governments and Recommendations for the Future
Some of our interviewees believe there is space for dialogue with MENA governments. However, “it is narrow and most often technical.” Governments are generally more comfortable discussing technical issues—such as GBV referral pathways, standard operating procedures (SOPs), police training, or shelter management. However, dialogue quickly closes when conversations shift to structural or political matters such as discriminatory laws, digital surveillance, or economic precarity. In contexts like Iraq, for example, technical avenues exist—notably through ministries of health, justice, and women’s empowerment bodies—and therefore effective engagement happens below the political level, focusing on measurable, non-controversial outcomes such as legal implementation or case management systems.
Further, MENA governments seem to be more receptive when GBV and gender equality matters are linked to national stability, public health, governance efficiency, and economic growth.
Based on these assessments, key recommendations for this important work to continue include the following:
working within technocratic institutions and parliamentary committees, where incremental progress is possible
building entry points through technical collaboration and use them to gradually introduce more systemic reforms
Framing discussions in locally relevant terms—using national data, public policy goals, and social cohesion narratives to build ownership nationally by the government or the leadership.
As more women’s organizations in MENA come together to reassess, strategize, and calibrate their approach to advancing their GBV-focused programs, there seems to be an emerging narrative shift that prioritizes the need for the region to solve their own problems and diversify partnerships beyond Western donors. This trend opens opportunities for new, regionally-rooted dialogues that emphasize shared development. The region is already witnessing more informal platforms such as online feminist networks, community circles, and cross-border coalitions that are becoming vital for deeper, more political dialogue.
Therefore, our final two recommendations — echoed repeatedly by interviewees — are these:
Supporting and leveraging regional and South-South partnerships that align with local priorities and build trust, and
Recognizing and investing in these emerging spaces as future engagement will depend less on donor frameworks and more on locally grounded, flexible coalitions.