The U.S. State announced this month that it has approved nearly $2 billion in partnerships with faith-based organizations, which it calls “the largest allocation of global health foreign assistance to faith-based organizations in over 20 years.” The announcement indicates a promising uptick in engagement with faith-based organizations. But, as with any foreign aid spending, the benefits will only be reaped through effective and committed oversight.
The State Department grants fell into three main pots. The largest is an $850 million Faith and Community Initiative (FCI) Award, over five years, to a faith-based consortium led by World Vision, which supports over 2,500 faith-based hospitals, clinics, and “community hubs” and trains, pays, and equips 30,000 health workers. That award is part of $1.4 billion made available through the America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS) for “faith and community-based hospitals and clinics in more than 20 countries,” according to the State Department press release.
The second pot is $570 million to “faith-based and community hospitals and clinics” through Memorandums of Understanding with foreign governments. In many of these, faith-based healthcare providers represent up to 40% of all providers.
The third pot includes $538 million in humanitarian response funding to Samaritan’s Purse and a consortium led by World Vision and Compassion International. Over $100 million would be available immediately.
Samaritan’s Purse president and CEO Franklin Graham said the funds would support field hospitals in Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as a supply airlift to Colombia following a recent earthquake there.
In addition to these funding streams, World Vision announced that it separately received $238 million from the State Department’s Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response to provide basic human necessities (food, water, shelter) in 30 countries.
The announcement follows steep cuts to foreign aid early last year. Within a week of President Trump taking office, the White House had frozen all foreign aid spending and mothballed most of USAID. But now, after a thorough review of foreign aid programming, the Trump State Department is poised to proceed in an expanded partnership with faith-based nonprofits, according to a health strategy the State Department developed last September.
This is a positive step in the area of foreign aid. For decades, U.S. foreign aid assistance has been primarily dominated by leftist NGOs, even though many of the Americans most motivated to assist poor nations overseas are motivated by their Christian convictions. The Trump administration is now recognizing the strength of that motivation and turning it into an asset.
Some groups did notice, however, that the Trump administration’s faith-based partnership seems to be so far limited to Christian organizations. The Freedom From Religion Foundation predictably called the partnerships “outrageous.”
There may be a number of explanations for this. The Trump administration may be focusing first on organizations that dispense aid at large scale or running a pilot project for expansion later.
The Trump administration’s State Department may also be limiting its partners for now to deny money from flowing to terrorist outfits.
Last year, the Middle East Forum revealed that $164 million in U.S. foreign aid had made its way to terrorist fundraisers, mostly through subcontracts with larger NGOs. The report demonstrated a widespread lack of oversight in U.S. foreign aid spending. Even World Vision had subcontracted in 2014 with Islamic Relief Agency, a terrorist fundraising outfit tied to Osama bin Laden, although they took corrective measures when that was pointed out. Catholic Relief Services had also subcontracted with Palestinian groups tied to Hamas.
Such terrorist fundraising outfits present themselves as Islamic charities, making the task of vetting faith-based organizations all the more difficult. Thus, while it’s good to see the Trump administration leverage the energy of faith-based organizations in U.S. foreign aid, it remains essential for the government to exercise strict oversight of the funds and sound vetting practices to prevent U.S. tax dollars from going to terrorists.
