Nepal was already confronting the growing challenges of preparing for disasters that are becoming more extreme and difficult to predict and responding to them with fewer resources. But after catastrophic flooding hit the country twice since August, another missing piece has been exposed: the absence of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), once a steadfast partner in Nepal’s disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response.
Development workers say that the U.S. response to the flooding along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers has been limited compared to past disasters, including the devastating 2015 earthquake, when USAID worked with multiple organizations in rescue and relief operations and served, in one advisor’s words, as the “lead U.S. government agency for coordinating foreign disaster relief.”
“Compared to the 2015 response, the difference is night and day,” Santosh Gyawali—the former Nepal representative for USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which oversaw disaster response coordination—told Foreign Policy. “The U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team arrived for search-and-rescue operations and did quick assessments on building safety and saved lives. They worked as auxiliary to the Nepal government. We see that missing now,” Gyawali added.
USAID was effectively destroyed in July 2025 following months of funding freezes and mass layoffs conducted under the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. The dismantling of one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies drew widespread condemnation, sending ripples across developing countries where U.S. assistance had long provided lifesaving programs—from improving maternal and child health to providing malaria and HIV medications.
In Nepal, U.S. assistance had helped build disaster response capacity for decades, including the Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response, which created a network of trained personnel across borders in the Himalayas and beyond “who spoke the same disaster language,” Gyawali said. USAID also partnered with Nepal’s National Society for Earthquake Technology for various preparedness programs and conducted Community Action for Disaster Response trainings.
“Our topology and terrain are such that it will take time for people to arrive here,” Gyawali said. “In any disaster, the first responders are the community. We were training first responders in the community and within the security forces, and with USAID pulling the plug, all these efforts have also discontinued.”
Funding cuts are already affecting disaster monitoring. One casualty, ended in January 2025, is SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH)—a joint initiative of USAID, NASA, and the Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)—which helps monitor floods, landslides, and other hazards intensified by extreme weather.
Birendra Bajracharya, the project’s former director at ICIMOD, said initiatives such as SERVIR are crucial for developing customized applications that translate satellite data into actionable information. Mountainous areas, in particular, are difficult to access but highly prone to climate change-driven events. Researchers can use satellite imagery to continuously monitor glacial lakes, landslide-prone areas, and other risky landscapes to strengthen disaster monitoring, early warning, and forecasting.
“The USAID funding was pivotal for research and technology,” he told Foreign Policy. “Although it will not have an immediate impact on the ground, it will affect innovation that would have helped us predict certain weather-related events better in the future. The program also helped in training communities to use our tools and share information. The funding cut has discontinued them.”
While some tools for assessing extreme weather and forecasting river flows remain functional on ICIMOD’s servers, Bajracharya said their upgrading and engagement with users have stopped, which limits the effective use of information and raises concerns over the tools’ long-term sustainability.
A U.S. State Department official told Foreign Policy that the SERVIR-HKH program concluded in January 2025, before the USAID reorganization, and that its tools and services remain active. The official added that the U.S. government continues to support Nepal’s flood-warning capacity through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a grant to the World Meteorological Organization.
However, people familiar with SERVIR-HKH said, speaking on background, that the program’s contract was originally due to run through 2026, but that its work was cut short as early as January 2025.
Climate change is making the Himalayas increasingly fragile, with rising global temperatures posing a risk of accelerating glacial melt and increasing the risk of glacial lake outburst floods that can inundate downstream communities. In 2020, ICIMOD identified 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal, India, and China. The growing risks have also raised concerns among climate analysts about the U.S. rollbacks on its climate commitments and consequences for countries on the front lines of climate change.
Just as Nepal has been recovering from the August floods, the country has experienced multiple disasters in its aftermath. In late September, dramatic footage showed a large section of a mountain crashing into the Kali Gandaki River and briefly blocking it in the Mustang region, located in the north-central part of the country, causing devastating floods. On Sunday, another rock-ice avalanche—similar to the August event, though smaller in scale—resulted in a flash flood, sweeping away houses, bridges, and trekking trails in central Nepal’s Gorkha district, though no fatalities have been reported so far.
A report published in September by Washington, D.C.-based advisory firm One Earth Partners noted that USAID’s dismantling has “resulted in the immediate loss of $1 billion per year in direct funding for biodiversity, climate, clean energy, and pollution reduction programs across more than 100 countries.”
Erin Coughlan de Perez, a climate scientist and associate professor at Tufts University, said that satellite-based monitoring and early warning systems are critical infrastructure that requires significant investment across all aspects of early warning systems, including monitoring, forecasting, and communication. She added that the “international community should be providing substantial support for climate-vulnerable countries like Nepal.”
Gyawali, who had worked with USAID for 32 years, said that the agency had provided such support for decades.
In 2014, USAID supported the establishment of an early flood-warning system in eastern Nepal’s Kankai River Basin, which Gyawali said largely helped prevent casualties along the riverbanks. Before its departure, the agency disbursed more than $30 million through Tayar Nepal, its flagship disaster risk-management program, between 2020 and 2024, government data shows.
Tayar worked with Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, local governments, and communities to improve both disaster preparedness and emergency response through local risk assessments, simulation exercises, and disaster drills.
“USAID was not only providing technology but also transferring knowledge, engaging and empowering communities, and giving ownership to the people,” Gyawali said. “That’s all lost now. And sadly, after USAID’s exit, we did not continue many of the programs ourselves.”
Disaster risk reduction experts such as Gangalal Tuladhar, who is also a former education minister, see the lack of ownership of projects after completion as a problem.
“Donors like USAID have helped build capacity, but our institutional memory is very weak, and when the projects ended, the technology transfer and knowledge also ended with them,” he said. “This is also a weakness of our public institutions and the government and reflects our poor work attitude.”
Tuladhar said that Nepal’s local and provincial governments could play instrumental roles in disaster preparedness without donor assistance if they “mobilize funds from the government coffers efficiently and work honestly.” However, rehabilitation and recovery, as well as investments in technologies to monitor climate hazards, would require more bilateral assistance.
The United States has provided about $36 million in assistance—compared to more than $130 million after the earthquake—along with drones and forensics support following this year’s floods. Development workers have questioned whether the amount is sufficient.
A former top USAID official, Mark Ward, described the initial U.S. contribution of $500,000 as “embarrassing,” adding that the assistance would have “been a lot more” if USAID was still running and equipped to conduct a better ground assessment. But other U.S. and Nepali officials, speaking on background, argued that the scale of last month’s disaster was smaller than the earthquake, accounting for a reduced contribution.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Foreign Policy that Washington’s disaster response has been based on requests from the Nepali government and that “we have proactively offered more assistance than they requested.”
“In reality, by reforming our assistance programs, we have been able to respond faster to crises, as demonstrated across the world,” he said.
Nepal’s disaster risk management authority has estimated the reconstruction bill from the floods at around $4.7 billion, with roughly 65 percent of that amount required to rebuild infrastructure. That figure is likely to rise after the latest flooding.
Many climate activists, meanwhile, are demanding that the world’s largest emitters—including the United States— compensate countries such as Nepal that are bearing the brunt.
Gyawali said that USAID’s absence will further strain government coffers at a time when other Western countries—including the United Kingdom and several European states—are prioritizing domestic needs over foreign assistance.
And while dwindling funds could hamper Nepal’s recovery, experts warn that they could also weaken the systems needed to prepare for the next disaster, including programs such as SERVIR that monitor hazards and help improve forecasting and early warning.
“It’s difficult for the government alone to maintain such systems, and we need donor funds to help customize such technology to our local context,” Bajracharya said. “But development can’t just depend on donor funding, and with more and more international donors downsizing or pulling out, the [Nepali] government and nongovernment organizations need to think about how to design our programs effectively, with clear sustainability plans.”