9. Agency for International Development · Notable
Extend PLGHA to all foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid
Printed page 261 9. Agency for International Development
“The executive order to reinstate PLGHA should be drafted broadly to apply to all foreign assistance.”
What has happened
- Partially done
A rule rather than the executive order did the extending, and it stops short of all foreign assistance. Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance expands the policy "beyond global health assistance to include all non-military foreign assistance", expressly covering humanitarian assistance, Migration and Refugee Assistance, economic and development assistance, stabilization, civil society and democracy programming and voluntary contributions to international organizations. Two carve-outs remain: military assistance is outside the definition, and the award term reaches grants, cooperative agreements and voluntary contributions only - for contracts, "[u]ntil that rule-making process is complete, no clause will be included in foreign assistance contracts". Effective 2026-02-26.
- Attempted
The reinstating memorandum was drafted narrowly, not broadly: it reinstated the 2017 memorandum, whose reach is global health assistance, and directed the Secretary of State only "to implement a plan to extend the requirements of the reinstated Memorandum to global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies" - extension across agencies, not across categories of aid.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Humanitarian aid, the clause the item’s title picks out, is expressly covered; contracts and military assistance are not, so partial.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Scope of the PLGHA policy
- ID
- 671