Press
CNN: US foreign aid freeze is upending global aid and the work of contractors
30th January 2025
“We were told to lay off all of our staff,” said Annie Feighery, the CEO of mWater, a US company that provides a free digital platform to governments and organizations around the world to help improve access to water. She said that as a subcontractor, the firm is “carrying a debt load of our projects” and has not yet been paid for work done in January.
The USAID stop-work order has taken out 80% of her company’s budget, she said.
“It’s going to put a lot of small businesses out of work,” Feighery said, noting that mWater staff in Indonesia, Haiti, Kenya, Uganda and the US are impacted. “If we’re allowed in May to go back to work, we will have to do the work in May and get paid in June… It’s horrific, you know, to imagine any company going two quarters without their funding.”
She added that companies working in the technology aid space are also concerned about other nations, like China, stepping in to fill the void during the 90-day pause on foreign aid. Foreign governments using data systems that are US-based, like those of mWater, is better than having them run on Chinese technology, she argued.
Politico: Clean water projects imperiled after Trump guts USAID
7th February 2025
Water is very much a cornerstone priority in global development,” said Annie Feighery, CEO of mWater, a global water software platform that relies on USAID funding. “If you want to help countries get wealthier and escape poverty, water is one of the first places to invest.”
Feighery’s digital platform, mWater, has been used by NGOs and many foreign governments to track and manage water resources, she said. Because roughly 80 percent of her organization’s funding came from USAID, Feighery has started a fundraising campaign to continue operating, she said. As of this week, seven of the organization’s 15 employees have been placed on administrative leave without pay, she said. “I don’t want to lose my team,” Feighery said. “We worked very hard to create who we think are the world’s leading experts to build safe water systems around the world.”
GWI: USAID Stop Work Order brings widespread disruption to water sector
4th February 2025
Annie Feighery, CEO of mWater, a company providing open access management systems for water service providers (including numerous developing world utilities), told GWI that it had had to lay off local staff in Haiti, Indonesia and Kenya where mWater was running USAID-funded projects to roll out the platform. The company is now running an emergency fundraising campaign to see whether it can cover their salaries.
Feighery is also concerned about the impact of the stop work order on mWater itself. Sub-contractors typically invoice for works retrospectively but mWater has not been paid for works it carried out in January (nor was their prime, DAI Global) and with the current freeze, it will not be able to invoice until the end of May (if business resumes at the end April), which means no payment until June.
Few European or multilateral DFIs will have the appetite or ability to increase their support, leaving a ripe opportunity for China to step in. Feighery said this was a real concern in the data space where she operates, although China has long competed on infrastructure and finance too, especially in Africa. “We are in competition with Belt and Road [China’s global development strategy] and Chinese systems. We have clear data agreements – it belongs to our customers – and these are not provisions that will come with Belt and Road data.”
