Reports
After the Exit: Mapping ASEAN Intra-regional Partnerships for Refugee Protection in the Absence of USAID
- Asia Team
- 28 July 2025
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been a central driver of humanitarian and development assistance in Southeast Asia, including refugee protection in partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States (Thailand Business News, 2025). Through initiatives such as the Partnership for Good Governance, Equitable, and Sustainable Development and Security (PROGRESS) and the Partnership for Regional Optimisation within the Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Communities (PROSPECT), USAID has supported anti-trafficking frameworks, capacity-building for legal aid, and direct service delivery in refugee camps (U.S. Mission to ASEAN, 2023). In 2025, however, the United States (U.S.) government altered its foreign aid approach and is poised to ‘close down’ USAID (BBC News, 2025).
In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14169, initiating a 90-day suspension of most foreign aid programmes (AP News, 2025). USAID, recognised as the largest individual provider of humanitarian assistance globally, will allocate $860 million to Southeast Asia in 2024. The agency is active in six of the region’s 11 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Southeast Asia, with a population nearing 700 million, exhibits significant disparities in economic development. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar rank among the lowest in terms of economic performance and depend heavily on international aid (Al Jazeera, 2025). Furthermore, in mid-March 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that 83 percent of USAID projects would be terminated, with the remaining initiatives to be managed directly by the State Department (The Diplomat, 2025).
In the context of refugee support, the impact of the recent U.S. decision to withdraw USAID funding has been felt immediately in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. For example, in Indonesia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have reduced shelter stipends for Rohingya refugees, leading to overcrowding and increased vulnerability (Reuters, 2025). In Malaysia, A Call to Serve (ACTS) is among several local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing support to refugees and has previously collaborated with UNHCR (The Diplomat, 2025). For the past decade, ACTS depended on annual funding from the U.S. State Department. However, with the discontinuation of these grants, the organisation has been forced to suspend its health workshops, scale back its mobile clinic services, and reduce the operating days of its permanent clinic from five days a week to three (The Diplomat, 2025). Moreover, in Thailand, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has shut down multiple border-camp clinics, ending services for an estimated 100,000 refugees who relied on them for primary care, dialysis, and maternal health support (The Guardian, 2025). These events underscored ASEAN’s structural weaknesses in refugee governance. The region has no binding regional asylum framework, and only the Philippines and Cambodia are parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol (East Asia Forum, 2025). In this case, the abrupt loss of USAID funding raises a critical research question: how can ASEAN sustain refugee protection in the absence of a major external donor, and which member states are positioned to lead intra-regional cooperation?
After the Exit: Mapping ASEAN Intra-regional Partnerships for Refugee Protection in the Absence of USAID examines how the loss of U.S. support is reshaping refugee protection in Southeast Asia. It investigates whether ASEAN Member States can develop intra-regional partnerships to address the crisis and identifies which governments or local actors are best positioned to take the lead. By tracing policy gaps and emerging responses, this study aims to evaluate ASEAN’s ability to build a more sustainable and coordinated refugee governance model in the post-USAID era.
In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14169, initiating a 90-day suspension of most foreign aid programmes (AP News, 2025). USAID, recognised as the largest individual provider of humanitarian assistance globally, will allocate $860 million to Southeast Asia in 2024. The agency is active in six of the region’s 11 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Southeast Asia, with a population nearing 700 million, exhibits significant disparities in economic development. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar rank among the lowest in terms of economic performance and depend heavily on international aid (Al Jazeera, 2025). Furthermore, in mid-March 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that 83 percent of USAID projects would be terminated, with the remaining initiatives to be managed directly by the State Department (The Diplomat, 2025).
In the context of refugee support, the impact of the recent U.S. decision to withdraw USAID funding has been felt immediately in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. For example, in Indonesia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have reduced shelter stipends for Rohingya refugees, leading to overcrowding and increased vulnerability (Reuters, 2025). In Malaysia, A Call to Serve (ACTS) is among several local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing support to refugees and has previously collaborated with UNHCR (The Diplomat, 2025). For the past decade, ACTS depended on annual funding from the U.S. State Department. However, with the discontinuation of these grants, the organisation has been forced to suspend its health workshops, scale back its mobile clinic services, and reduce the operating days of its permanent clinic from five days a week to three (The Diplomat, 2025). Moreover, in Thailand, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has shut down multiple border-camp clinics, ending services for an estimated 100,000 refugees who relied on them for primary care, dialysis, and maternal health support (The Guardian, 2025). These events underscored ASEAN’s structural weaknesses in refugee governance. The region has no binding regional asylum framework, and only the Philippines and Cambodia are parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol (East Asia Forum, 2025). In this case, the abrupt loss of USAID funding raises a critical research question: how can ASEAN sustain refugee protection in the absence of a major external donor, and which member states are positioned to lead intra-regional cooperation?
After the Exit: Mapping ASEAN Intra-regional Partnerships for Refugee Protection in the Absence of USAID examines how the loss of U.S. support is reshaping refugee protection in Southeast Asia. It investigates whether ASEAN Member States can develop intra-regional partnerships to address the crisis and identifies which governments or local actors are best positioned to take the lead. By tracing policy gaps and emerging responses, this study aims to evaluate ASEAN’s ability to build a more sustainable and coordinated refugee governance model in the post-USAID era.
✨ AI summary
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been a central driver of humanitarian and development assistance in Southeast Asia, including refugee protection in partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States (Thailand Business News, 2025). Through initiatives such as the Partnership for Good Governance, Equitable, and Sustainable Development and Security (PROGRESS) and the Partnership for Regional Optimisation within the Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Communities (PROSPECT), USAID has supported anti-trafficking frameworks, capacity-building for legal aid, and direct service delivery in refugee camps (U.S. Mission to ASEAN, 2023). In 2025, however, the United States (U.S.) government altered its foreign aid approach and is poised to ‘close down’ USAID (BBC News, 2025).
In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14169, initiating a 90-day suspension of most foreign aid programmes (AP News, 2025). USAID, recognised as the largest individual provider of humanitarian assistance globally, will allocate $860 million to Southeast Asia in 2024. The agency is active in six of the region’s 11 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Southeast Asia, with a population nearing 700 million, exhibits significant disparities in economic development. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar rank among the lowest in terms of economic performance and depend heavily on international aid (Al Jazeera, 2025). Furthermore, in mid-March 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that 83 percent of USAID projects would be terminated, with the remaining initiatives to be managed directly by the State Department (The Diplomat, 2025).
In the context of refugee support, the impact of the recent U.S. decision to withdraw USAID funding has been felt immediately in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. For example, in Indonesia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have reduced shelter stipends for Rohingya refugees, leading to overcrowding and increased vulnerability (Reuters, 2025). In Malaysia, A Call to Serve (ACTS) is among several local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing support to refugees and has previously collaborated with UNHCR (The Diplomat, 2025). For the past decade, ACTS depended on annual funding from the U.S. State Department. However, with the discontinuation of these grants, the organisation has been forced to suspend its health workshops, scale back its mobile clinic services, and reduce the operating days of its permanent clinic from five days a week to three (The Diplomat, 2025). Moreover, in Thailand, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has shut down multiple border-camp clinics, ending services for an estimated 100,000 refugees who relied on them for primary care, dialysis, and maternal health support (The Guardian, 2025). These events underscored ASEAN’s structural weaknesses in refugee governance. The region has no binding regional asylum framework, and only the Philippines and Cambodia are parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol (East Asia Forum, 2025). In this case, the abrupt loss of USAID funding raises a critical research question: how can ASEAN sustain refugee protection in the absence of a major external donor, and which member states are positioned to lead intra-regional cooperation?
After the Exit: Mapping ASEAN Intra-regional Partnerships for Refugee Protection in the Absence of USAID examines how the loss of U.S. support is reshaping refugee protection in Southeast Asia. It investigates whether ASEAN Member States can develop intra-regional partnerships to address the crisis and identifies which governments or local actors are best positioned to take the lead. By tracing policy gaps and emerging responses, this study aims to evaluate ASEAN’s ability to build a more sustainable and coordinated refugee governance model in the post-USAID era.
In January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14169, initiating a 90-day suspension of most foreign aid programmes (AP News, 2025). USAID, recognised as the largest individual provider of humanitarian assistance globally, will allocate $860 million to Southeast Asia in 2024. The agency is active in six of the region’s 11 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Southeast Asia, with a population nearing 700 million, exhibits significant disparities in economic development. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar rank among the lowest in terms of economic performance and depend heavily on international aid (Al Jazeera, 2025). Furthermore, in mid-March 2025, the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that 83 percent of USAID projects would be terminated, with the remaining initiatives to be managed directly by the State Department (The Diplomat, 2025).
In the context of refugee support, the impact of the recent U.S. decision to withdraw USAID funding has been felt immediately in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. For example, in Indonesia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have reduced shelter stipends for Rohingya refugees, leading to overcrowding and increased vulnerability (Reuters, 2025). In Malaysia, A Call to Serve (ACTS) is among several local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing support to refugees and has previously collaborated with UNHCR (The Diplomat, 2025). For the past decade, ACTS depended on annual funding from the U.S. State Department. However, with the discontinuation of these grants, the organisation has been forced to suspend its health workshops, scale back its mobile clinic services, and reduce the operating days of its permanent clinic from five days a week to three (The Diplomat, 2025). Moreover, in Thailand, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has shut down multiple border-camp clinics, ending services for an estimated 100,000 refugees who relied on them for primary care, dialysis, and maternal health support (The Guardian, 2025). These events underscored ASEAN’s structural weaknesses in refugee governance. The region has no binding regional asylum framework, and only the Philippines and Cambodia are parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol (East Asia Forum, 2025). In this case, the abrupt loss of USAID funding raises a critical research question: how can ASEAN sustain refugee protection in the absence of a major external donor, and which member states are positioned to lead intra-regional cooperation?
After the Exit: Mapping ASEAN Intra-regional Partnerships for Refugee Protection in the Absence of USAID examines how the loss of U.S. support is reshaping refugee protection in Southeast Asia. It investigates whether ASEAN Member States can develop intra-regional partnerships to address the crisis and identifies which governments or local actors are best positioned to take the lead. By tracing policy gaps and emerging responses, this study aims to evaluate ASEAN’s ability to build a more sustainable and coordinated refugee governance model in the post-USAID era.
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