A year after Trump's aid freeze, Maldivian civil society counts the cost

When US funding froze in January last year, the impact on Maldivian civil society was immediate.

Upon assuming office on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order initiating a 90-day pause and review of US foreign aid to ensure alignment with his administration's policies. US-funded civil society organisations across the globe woke up to "stop-work" orders for programs funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, requiring immediate project suspensions.

The team of Association for Democracy in the Maldives was in a southern atoll, just about to begin a workshop when they got the call. Funding for that activity had been frozen. They were instructed not to incur any new costs.

The project was funded through the National Democratic Institute. It was originally scheduled to end in June 2025, ADM's Communications Coordinator Ula Ahmed recounted.

The worst impact of the abrupt funding freeze was ADM not having been reimbursed for the expenses and work that had already been completed, she told the Maldives Independent.

"All our work is with the purpose of empowering rights holders, which is a relationship based on trust. Beneficiaries have expectations when we announce and involve them in project activities. When those project activities are cut short in harmful ways, we lose the trust that they have in us," Ula said.

Transparency Maldives was forced to downsize from 23 to 10 staff members and to reassess priority areas, Governance Manager Azza Mohamed told the Maldives Independent.

"This shift affected the rollout of certain program activities and created uncertainty for both our team and the communities we serve," she said.

The anti-corruption NGO was formally notified of the stop-work order by their donor at a time when its main USAID-funded project was concluding and preparations for a new initiative were underway. However, despite these challenges, TM has adapted programs where possible, Azza said. It has been actively exploring alternative funding sources and adjusting strategies to mitigate the impact.

The Maldives Red Crescent received funding from USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. The partnership was structured as a multi-year engagement with a focus on strengthening resilience across island communities, particularly in relation to disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management, complementing and expanding national Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives implemented in partnership with the National Disaster Management Authority.

At the time the stop-work order was issued in January 2025, the only project MRC was implementing was Resilience Planning and Strengthening Community Preparedness. A second project was at advanced stages of confirmation, which had been intended to extend the partnership through to 2027. With both projects combined, the Red Crescent aimed to reach 15 island communities along with other key engagements in the sector.

But all planned interventions and activities were halted effective January 27, 2025, Ibrahim Shameel, MRC's manager of programmes and services, told the Maldives Independent.

"For the ERCP project, approximately 40 percent of planned initiatives had been implemented at the time of the stop-work order, with active engagement and interventions ongoing across five island communities during this time," he said.

Following the stop-work order, MRC undertook necessary adjustments to initial plans, delivery models, and the overall scope of activities, including the scaling down of implementation and project personnel, Shameel said. These changes affected the planned expansion of disaster risk reduction work and several capacity-building initiatives intended to strengthen resilience among target island communities, he noted.

But despite the impact of the stop-work order, Shameel said the Red Crescent together with partners such as NDMA was able to continue delivering selected activities through combined and collaborative efforts and alternative resource mobilisation, albeit at a reduced scale.

The Information Commissioner's Office was meanwhile working with the International Republican Institute.

"The work that we do with councils on levels of proactive disclosure was mainly connected with a collaborative program with IRI. So when [we] look at how much of an impact, since the stop order came there was a sudden halt to that," Information Commissioner Ahid Rasheed told the Maldives Independent.

"So we don't have other avenues to do proactive disclosure work like that," he added.

As ICOM had planned for the whole year, the office did not allocate funds from its own budget. It has since struggled to implement programs on proactive disclosure improvements with councils.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), US-based organisations respectively affiliated with the Democratic and Republican parties, operated offices in Malé supporting civil society capacity-building and local governance programs.

IRI’s work primarily involved improving decentralised governance, working with local councils and Women’s Development Committees. It focused on strengthening meaningful participation in policy decision-making through the Strong and Inclusive Maldivian Democracy, originally a five-year US$ 19 million program implemented through a consortium of US democracy assistance organisations in partnership with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative. IRI was the lead coordination partner of the program. 

The project tasked IRI with enhancing the capacity of local councils to support good governance practices, as well as supporting civil society actors and Women’s Development Committees to develop sustainable management, advocacy and funding mechanisms nationwide in partnership with the Local Government Authority. In 2024, IRI provided crucial assistance for the formation of the Maldives Local Council Association.

The US Bar Association worked on strengthening and improving justice sector institutions, assisting the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) and the Bar Council of the Maldives, which administered the country’s first-ever bar exams in 2022. Complementary assistance on civil society political process monitoring, civic education and media literacy was provided by NDI and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Through its partners, IFES worked on the inclusion of persons with disabilities. 

The Maldives Independent understands PILC was forced to stop all work and drop clients of their pro bono legal aid program, which provided assistance to migrant workers. 

Other projects included IRI’s Women in Local Leadership, NDI’s climate activities and the American Bar Association's work with the Maldives Journalists Association. 

"When the news of the redundancies came following the decision to cut USAID funding, I was on an island delivering a training for local councils and Women’s Development Committees,” a staff member of IRI recalled. “At the time, I held onto the hope that the decision would be reversed and did not imagine it would lead to full redundancy."

By the end of May 2025, all 12 of IRI’s local staff were placed under redundancy and the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) offices in the Maldives were closed. 

Women in Tech Maldives was running projects supported by NDI, Aisha Adnan, the NGO's co-founder and National Coordinator of the Maldives Internet Governance Forum (IGF), told the Maldives Independent. At the time of the stop-work order, Maldives IGF support activities were ongoing, and planning for 2025 cybersecurity awareness programmes was underway. Capacity-building for the Women in Tech team and a media literacy hackathon had already been completed.

The projects focused on digital governance, cybersecurity awareness, and media literacy. Their beneficiaries were civil society organisations, political actors, and youth innovators, primarily in Malé and Addu, with activities ranging from awareness sessions to a national media literacy hackathon, Aisha said.

The project was originally planned to close in mid to late 2025. Cybersecurity programmes, team capacity-building, and the media literacy hackathon were completed by January 2025. Planned cybersecurity activities for 2025 could not proceed.

"The freeze limited Women In Tech's ability to continue planned programmes and required the team to seek alternative donors, particularly for IGF activities. Staff had to re-prioritise work, and dedicated capacity for paused programmes could not be sustained," Aisha explained.

Beneficiaries experienced disrupted access to planned cybersecurity awareness and follow-up support, particularly civil society groups and political actors. "This reduced continuity at a time when digital safety and resilience remained critical," Aisha said.

Women in Tech was able to partially continue work with IGF activities through new partnerships and funding. However, cybersecurity programmes planned for 2025 were paused and now require realignment before resuming.

While groups such as the Red Crescent and Transparency Maldives – which operate under the umbrella of international organisations – were able to mobilise resources and adjust programs, smaller organisations lacked the financial capacity to adapt and survive.

"It is essential that local donors invest in Maldivian CSOs to improve the situation within our country," Ula from the Association for Democracy said. "No one else will care about the rights of Maldivians or the state of our country more than we do ourselves."

The foreign ministry and US embassy in the Maldives did not respond to requests for comment.

Disclosure: The reporter previously worked at the International Republican Institute's Maldives office, which closed following the USAID funding freeze.