The halt to USAID projects will likely impact secret schools for girls across Afghanistan, which could close as soon as the funds from the U.S. agency go dry. Above: A teenage girl wearing a face mask, head scarf and long black robe at a tutoring center in Kabul, established by a women’s rights activist to circumvent a Taliban ban on girls attending secondary school.

Diaa Hadid/NPR

Amid the flurry of executive actions that President Trump issued from the White House, one in particular has caused chaos in poorer parts of the world: the order to suspend foreign aid. From rebuilding police stations in flood-ravaged parts of Pakistan to running secret schools for Afghan women, the money that powered that work has dried up.

That order was followed by the State Department effectively freezing USAID-funded projects around the world through a “stop-work” order while a review takes place to see if they align with the new Trump administration’s agenda. Emergency food aid was exempted as was aid to Israel and Egypt. Days later, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also widened the exception to include “life-saving humanitarian assistance.” Rubio defined that as “medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”

But aid groups say the criteria and process for obtaining the waivers has not been made clear.

In Pakistan, a notice sent to government officials seen by NPR ordered work to stop on multiple USAID projects. They ranged from the reconstruction of 10 police stations damaged by unprecedented flooding in the summer of 2022 to merit and needs-based scholarships funded through the Pakistan Higher Education Commission.

Asked to comment on the scope of programs being affected in Pakistan and elsewhere, the U.S. State Department referred NPR to the original statement and waiver. Among the key points: any waiver granted for life-saving activities is “temporary in nature” and the goal is to “rooting out waste … blocking woke programs … and exposing activities that run contrary to our national interests.” These goals cannot be met, say the memos, “if programs are on ‘auto-pilot.’ ”

Uncertainty in Afghanistan

And the pain was felt nearly immediately in Afghanistan, where humanitarian aid undergirds nearly all services to the country’s some 40 million people. There, the Taliban’s deputy minister of economy, Abdul Latif Nazari, said that around 50 national and international aid organizations had their operations suspended, partly or entirely, across Afghanistan.

“These organizations have contributed to humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan,” said Nazari. He declined to specify why the charities had stopped work, but a senior aid worker in Kabul said it was because those organizations were receiving money through USAID. Like nearly all people interviewed for this story, he requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media about the suspension to aid.

Amid the uncertainty, in Afghan bazaars, the price of items like bread flour, cooking oil and rice have been rising. Prices were rising before President Trump was inaugurated. But traders tell NPR that the chaos and uncertainty following his suspension of foreign aid is keeping prices high.

It’s created hardship to folks who are barely getting by, like 48-year-old Aqlima. She asked that NPR not use her last name, worried the Taliban could identify her. She said she was scraping by, through small tailoring jobs, and items she could once afford are now out of reach, like a gallon of cooking oil, which has increased by $5. “If we use oil for one meal, we skip it for two,” she said. She purchased a new wood heater a few months ago — now she can’t afford firewood. “We can only afford to breathe,” she sighed.

“It is chaos,” said a senior aid worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, of the impact on charities. “And the real danger is for women’s education and health care in Afghanistan, because these projects rely on USAID money.”

The health care interruptions include vaccination efforts. Nematullah Ghafouri, 30, a vaccinator in the western city of Herat, said he and his colleagues were told by their project manager on January 27 that their work was suspended. Ghafouri’s project to go door-to-door, vaccinating children against measles and polio, was funded through the United Nations Population Fund and the Agency for Assistance and Development in Afghanistan. Ghafouri did not know that his specific project used money obtained through USAID.

One of the projects that now has an uncertain future runs classes for Afghan girls in defiance of the Taliban. The hardline group does not allow girls to study beyond grade six, and so the project runs classes online, through the radio and even has a network of clandestine schools that educate over 5,000 girls across Afghanistan and employ over 100 teachers.

The project is “the brink of shutting down,” said one aid worker familiar with the situation. She requested anonymity because her aid group, like many more, does not want to be identified, to avoid drawing the ire of the Trump administration at a time when they are trying to negotiate a softening of the aid suspension.

The American University of Afghanistan has also suspended classes, according to an email sent to a student who took a screenshot of the message and shared it with NPR. “Once/if foreign aid is restored, then AUAF will begin teaching again,” the message read. AUAF is the acronym for the American University of Afghanistan. the school has continued teaching through Taliban rule and supports educating young women in defiance of Afghanistan’s rulers. The AUAF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With additional reporting by Fazelminalah Qazizai in Kabul, Fariba Akbari in Paris.