Former CRS chief: USAID closure 'could actually cause death'

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- Amid ongoing uncertainty about the future of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the former head of Catholic Relief Services told OSV News that cutting off USAID funding to CRS could be a life-or-death matter for many of the millions of people served by the Catholic agency's relief projects all over the world.

Carolyn Woo, who served from 2012-2016 as president and CEO of CRS, the overseas relief and development arm of the Catholic Church in the U.S., told OSV News that while she cannot speak for all USAID projects, CRS projects funded by USAID "have significant impact on people's health, their livelihoods, their well-being, their food and even medicine."

"So the freeze, where it affects programs like this, really puts people's health, livelihood on the line, and it could actually cause death," said Woo, currently a distinguished president's fellow for global development at Purdue University. Woo is also a member of the board of directors of OSV, the parent company of OSV News.

CRS, Woo said, oversees hundreds of projects working with local partners in over 120 countries, affecting more than 200 million people.

Amid a broader freeze on federal spending on foreign assistance, the Trump administration moved to place most of USAID's global staff on leave. Reportedly the administration only aims to keep several hundred USAID workers out of 10,000 with the goal of folding the agency into the State Department. Even that is unclear, as Trump posted "CLOSE IT DOWN!" Feb. 7 on his Truth Social platform.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he was named USAID's acting administrator days after tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk targeted it for closure as part of his Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial task force with the stated intent of curbing federal spending. President Donald Trump has given Musk wide latitude to do this as a designated "special government employee."

Rollbacks to USAID could greatly impact the work of CRS and other faith-based entities around the globe that have partnered with USAID in its work abroad, Woo said. Such actions would also upend longstanding financial support from the U.S. government for the Catholic Church's charitable endeavors.

Stressing she could only speak to USAID in the context of its relationship with CRS, Woo said the agency "has supported the work of the Catholic Church, by the U.S. through CRS, as well as the global church."

"That has to be recognized, that there is that widespread and long-standing support for the work of the Catholic Church from the U.S.," she said, adding, "USAID has been our partner and has made it possible for this work to be done according to the Bible, to Jesus' call to love our neighbors."

CRS efforts that the federal aid program helped fund, Woo said, included helping those affected by displacement due to war or natural disasters; global health efforts including combating malaria, AIDS and the Ebola virus; education; nutritional assistance; and fostering agriculture.

"Our work is really to bring about peace, people working together and justice," she said. "We do a lot of work in capacity building, which is to enhance people's ability to look after themselves, to look after their families and communities, to have a seat at the table, so that they have some influence over decisions that affect them."

Woo also stressed that in CRS's partnerships with USAID, the federal agency respected the organization's Catholic identity, continuing to work with CRS across different administrations, even as the Catholic agency declined to provide contraceptives or abortion in its health efforts.

"The fact that we don't do that in our work and still amount to one of the highest (USAID) recipients, gives you some sense of the respect for that work and the respect for the principles of the Catholic Church," from USAID, Woo said.

Some have criticized CRS over the years for partnering with groups alleged to have engaged in activities contrary to Catholic teaching. CRS's board of directors, a majority of whom are Catholic bishops, is designed to oversee the agency's work to make sure it is carried out in line with Catholic teaching. The board is currently chaired by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez.

In a social media post Feb. 6, Trump suggested billions of dollars had been stolen at USAID and other agencies. He pointed to news subscriptions bought for government employees as evidence for his claim.

Other critics of USAID argued it engaged in wasteful spending or that the federal dollars appropriated to USAID would be better spent domestically. Asked about those arguments, Woo replied, "American soft power pays a dividend."

"Foreign aid is actually very beneficial to us, our security and our well-being," Woo said. "For example, in the funding that we receive from USAID, there's money which is used to buy American agricultural products; there's money which is used to engage American shipping companies. And so in some ways, we buy American in certain situations and use this as aid."

Furthermore, she said, sometimes agricultural cultivation elsewhere benefits both those overseas and U.S. consumers, such as a project that led to increased availability of passionfruit, now used in many U.S. consumer food products.

"It buys us tremendous goodwill," Woo said. "It actually develops other countries to become safer, which is safer for us, and also to become economic partners to us."

Concerns are mounting in the agriculture industry about the agency's apparent closure, as USAID purchased $2 billion in U.S.-grown crops in 2024, The Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. The agency also funded domestic agricultural research as part of its international food aid efforts through a program called Feed the Future. The website for that project was offline on Feb. 7.

Woo also pushed back on arguments from some Catholics that the church should not take government money in carrying out its charitable work.

"Well, in the end, I, as a parishioner, pay federal tax," she said. "Why shouldn't my tax money go into supporting foreign aid? And if that foreign aid ... should go to effective organizations which would carry out the work, if a Catholic organization is effective, why shouldn't we have those resources?"

The National Catholic Reporter said in a Feb. 5 report that layoffs had already begun at CRS, citing an internal email telling staff, "We anticipate that we will be a much smaller overall organization by the end of this fiscal year."

When asked about that report, Woo replied, "Cuts of this magnitude -- and given that CRS has been a major partner -- are going to affect many of our projects."