WASHINGTON: The State Department’s hurried takeover of aid programmes from the shuttered US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year was hampered by staffing shortages, IT issues and delayed guidance, an internal watchdog said in a report released on Monday.

President Donald Trump ordered the closure of USAID shortly after returning to office in January last year. Well over 10,000 people were fired and thousands of programmes cancelled, throwing into turmoil US-funded aid operations on which millions of the world’s poorest people depended.

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General said in its report that aid projects carrying $51.5 billion in obligated funds were transferred just as the department was undergoing its own reorganisation.

The “green list” of awards that survived the shutdown of USAID comprised 1,504 aid awards, including projects in conflict zones like Ukraine, Israel and the Palestinian territories, it said.

“The transition happened extremely fast, with evolving guidance,” the Office of Inspector General cited officials from one bureau as saying. The report found that the department had not implemented the inspector general’s earlier recommendations aimed at smoothing the transition.

The department’s top office for management told the authors that implementation of the watchdog’s recommendations was underway, the report said.

A State Department official, responding to the report, did not address the specific findings, but said the inspector general made “friendly recommendations”.

Projects transferred from USAID had been replaced with new models such as bilateral health agreements and targeted funding through the UN’s humanitarian aid agency, the official said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2026