Analyse af Project 2025 og amerikansk politik ift. ligestilling og SRSR

1
GLOBAL IMPACTS
OF PROJECT 2025
How the blueprint for the next Republican administration
may impact US foreign and development policy
on SRHR and gender equality.
By Malayah Harper
Commissioned by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU)
September 2024
Offentligt
SRSR Alm.del - Bilag 10,URU Alm.del - Bilag 260
Folketingets Tværpolitiske netværk for seksuel og reproduktiv sundhed og rettigheder 2023-24,Udenrigsudvalget 2023-24
2
acronyms
ADF Alliance Defending Freedom
AFPI America First Policy Institute
C-Fam Center for Family and Human Rights
CSOs Civil Society Organisations
EMCP Expanded Mexico City Policy
fNGOs foreign Non-Governmental Organisations
GPAHE Global Project Against Hate and Extremism
GCD Geneva Consensus Declaration
GFF Global Financing Facility
The Global Fund The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
GGR Global Gag Rule
IWH Institute for Women’s Health
INGOs International Non-Governmental Organisations
LGBTQ+ Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer +
MCP Mexico City Policy
NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations
ODA Official Development Assistance
PPFA Planned Parenthood Federation of America
PR Principal Recipients
PIOs Public International Organisations
PLGHA Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance
PLFA Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance
Sida Swedish International Development Agency
RFSU The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education
UN United Nations
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNAIDS United Nations Joint Program on HIV and AIDS
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East
US United States
USAID United States Agency for International Development
USA United States of America
GPC White House Gender Policy Council
WHO The World Health Organisation
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................4
2. WHAT IS PROJECT 2025?......................................................................................5
6. SUMMARY IMPLICATIONS FOR A NEW EXPANDED GLOBAL GAG RULE
......................................................................................................................................25
7. OVERALL CONCLUSION......................................................................................26
8. RECOMMENDATIONS – FOR EUROPEAN CIVIL SOCIETY AND
GOVERNMENTS........................................................................................................27
ANNEX1.KEYINFORMANTS...................................................................................30
FOOTNOTES..............................................................................................................31
Expansion 1 .....................................................................................................19
Expansion2....................................................................................................20
Expansion 3 ...................................................................................................22
Expansion 4 .........................................................................................................24
5. SPECIAL SECTION: PROPOSED FURTHER EXPANSIONS
OF THE MEXICO CITY POLICY.................................................................................19
4.1 The Mexico City Policy.............................................................................17
4. PREVIOUS U.S. POLICIES RESTRICTING ACCESS TO
SAFE AND LEGAL ABORTION.................................................................................17
3.1 Geopolitical context and solidarity.........................................................15
3.2TheEffectonUNAgenciesandtheUNsystem.........................................15
3.3 Impact on health and SRHR outcomes...................................................15
3. WHY SHOULD PROJECT 2025 CONCERN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS,
CSOs AND LIKEMINDED ALLIES?.................................................................15
2.1 Project 2025 – an overview....................................................................5
2.2Project2025’sApproach...........................................................................8
2.3 What are the main provisions within Project 2025 relevant to work
on Gender, Human Rights and SRHR in global spaces?...............................9
2.4 Project 2025 is already here....................................................................13
4
1. introduction
This rapid study focuses on how the implementation of “Project 2025” and its po-
licy platform ‘The Mandate for Leadership’ (hereafter referred to as The Mandate)
would impact United States (US) Official Development Assistance (ODA), enga-
gement with the multilateral system and foreign policy should Donald Trump win
the next US Presidential election.
The report aims to ‘unpack,’ and analyse Project 2025, to make it more easily
accessible to policymakers and provide an analysis of the potential impacts and
risks¹. The study provides an initial look at how some US-based International
Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) and selected United Nations (UN)
agencies are preparing. It also provides recommendations for European civil so-
ciety organisations (CSOs) and governments. The central methodology has been
a review of documents and media and 13 semi-structured key informant inter-
views (Annex 1).
This report focuses on the devastating impact the Project’s implementation would
have on international support for Gender Equality and Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Rights (SRHR), while making the case that these agendas need to be
seen through a ‘bigger lens’. The inter-linkages in organisations pushing against
gender equality and SRHR and those focused on climate change denialism and
‘anti-vaccination’, are now better understood as part of larger wider movements
designed to threaten democratic governance, human rights and multilateralism.
Countering this situation and preserving and advancing human rights requires
broader entry points and greater collective action.
Project 2025’s policy proposals outlined in The Mandate are positioned as a blue-
print and roadmap for the next ‘conservative’ administration. While Donald Trump
has recently attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, his close ties with
its architect and authors, the ideological similarity of many of his positions and
the selection of JD Vance as his Vice President candidate, make this distancing
unconvincing. Project 2025 is widely understood to be the platform for a future
Trump Administration. Project 2025 should not be seen as a ‘stand-alone’ initiati-
ve but rather an integral part of the wider global anti-gender and anti-SRHR mo-
vements that have been growing in force. While Project 2025 covers a huge range
of issues, attacks on gender equality, gender and SRHR (in particular abortion) are
at its heart.
The study was commissioned by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education
(RFSU) in July 2024. As part of its work to promote SRHR in Sweden, Europe and
globally, RFSU follows and monitors shifts in foreign and international develop-
ment corporation policies and official development assistance (ODA) in the US.
Changes in policy and political landscape related to SRHR and gender equality
in the US have huge implications for the foreign policy and development coo-
peration agenda of the European Union and European governments, including
Sweden. This report’s insights, analyses, and recommendations inform RFSUs
policy and programmatic response and are shared with other civil society organi-
sations and policymakers.
5
2.1 Project 2025 – an overview
2. what is project 2025?
The next conservative President must make the institutions of
American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors.
This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender
identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender,
gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive,
abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other
term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights
out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant,
regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.
The Mandate for Leadership, page 4
The Heritage Foundation², an influential American right-wing think tank, working
with a broad coalition of ultra-conservative and Christian nationalist groups has
made public policy plans and a road map for 2025 should Donald Trump win the
next Presidential election in November 2024. This is titled The Mandate for Le-
adership: The Presidential Transition Plan. The Mandate is the policy arm of an
initiative commonly known as Project 2025³. The Heritage Foundation has crea-
ted similar presidential roadmaps most notably the first ‘Mandate for Leadership’
which heavily influenced Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1981.
However, the current Mandate is markedly different. It is the most detailed and far
right of previous proposals and the authors and contributors have strong links to
the previous Trump administration. For many, Republicans and Democrats alike,
Trump’s win in 2016 came as a surprise and President Trump lacked a policy, tran-
sition and staffing plan that would allow him to swiftly deliver on his agenda. The
Heritage Foundation was determined not to let this happen again. They establis-
hed Project 2025 so that he could begin his term with a policy roadmap, executive
orders and pre-vetted and trained political appointees, that could be put in place
from day one.
At over 920 pages, The Mandate was drafted over two years and brought together
34 authors and over 420 contributors. The 54-member advisory board has many
familiar Christian Right Nationalist organisations such as Center for Family and
Human Rights (C-Fam), the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Institute
for Women’s Health (IWH).
This Mandate maps out sweeping reforms that are anti-democratic, with detai-
led plans for partisan courts, potential withdrawal from the United Nations (UN),
removing the apolitical career civil service and putting far-right political parti-
sans in their place across all federal government agencies, and centralising more
power in the hands of the president⁴. The Mandate overall has a central focus
on “fetal-personhood” and “hetero-normative family structure” and proposes to
remove rights and protections from transgender people referring to ‘transgender
extremists’ and ‘transgender ideology’ as pornography⁵. Proposed measures for
USAID include a significant restructuring, and reduction of budget, the removal
of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and dismantling of the apparatus that
supports gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights⁶. With respect to safe abortion care,
information and services, The Mandate, mentions abortion 199 times and lays out
6
plans for a massive expansion of the Mexico City Policy (MCP), also known as the
Global Gag Rule (GGR). Under President Trump’s first administration, the MCP
was already extended to cover all ODA in global health, known as Protecting Life
in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA). Project 2025 goes further, proposing to
make ‘protecting life’ a cornerstone of US foreign policy work and extending the
MCP to all U.S. foreign assistance (including humanitarian), known as Protecting
Life in Foreign Assistance (PLFA) and put in place other measures to remove
what the Mandate authors refer to as ‘loopholes’.
The Mandate for Leadership proposes to use a range of channels to achieve its
aims - ODA, multilateral engagement, and foreign policy - making this a cross-go-
vernment concern for Sweden and other European countries. As the world’s
largest contributor of development assistance ($66 billion in FY23), the U.S. has
a huge influence in partner countries.⁷ The implementation of the PLFA, cou-
pled with the removal of evidence-based, human-rights and gender-sensitive
approaches to development programming would have a huge impact not just on
SRHR, health outcomes and progress towards Universal Health Coverage, but
would also severely curtail civic voice, human rights, and democracy.
The architects of Project 2025 are intimately linked with transnational anti-rights
movements. The Alliance Defending Freedom (working through their interna-
tional arm), are members of (and have provided support to) far-right, anti-rights
movements in Europe such as ‘Agenda Europe’ (now called VisionLink). Other
contributors to The Mandate, such as the Institute for Women’s Health, run by
Valerie Huber, are leading efforts to roll out the Geneva Consensus Declaration,
GCD (Box 1 and Figure”/Map” 1⁸
)
Box 1: The Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), signed on
October 22, 2020, under the Trump administration, is an anti-
abortion manifesto currently endorsed by a coalition of 37 countries.
The US, Brazil and Colombia were original signatories which have
currently withdrawn. Efforts to cultivate signatories have continued
and been led by Valerie Huber, a former senior staffer in the Trump
Administration and founder of the Institute for Women’s Health.
The GCD is currently hosted by the Government of Hungary which
serves as the secretariat of the GCD coalition. The GCD extensively
co-opts human rights language - human rights of women are an
inalienable, integral part of all human rights and fundamental
freedoms, and it commits to Universal Health Coverage, while at the
same time seeking to deny access to abortion, stating that there is no
international right to abortion or any international obligation.
7
Project 2025 has four pillars. The first outlines the policy promise and the other
three are structured to operationalise the policy mandate from day one of the ad-
ministration. The Pillars are:
1.The Mandate for Leadership, which is the 920-page policy promise.
2. A Presidential Personnel Database of vetted loyal conservatives that can
be drawn on and put in place from day one in key offices.
3. The Presidential Administrative Academy provides a variety of master
classes in public service to ensure that the conservative administration is
trained (videos leaked in August 2024).
4. A 180-day Transition Playbook (not yet publicly available).
How much of the Mandate will be implemented, should Donald Trump win the
election remains an open question. Some analysts point to inconsistencies within
The Mandate as evidence of fractures within the ultra-right movement and note
that Project 2025 is not the only conservative organisation developing a policy
playbook⁹. The American First Policy Institute (AFPI) has a similar mission and also
engages former senior Trump staffers.
Donald Trump’s campaign has been careful to distance itself from Project 202510
and has denied any knowledge of Project 2025 and who is behind it, calling many
of the ideas ‘extreme’. However, most media outlets and the key informants for
this report see his new positioning as ”electioneering” given the microscope the
Democrats have placed on the Project’s extreme policy proposals and their imple-
mentation. There is in fact, ample evidence of Donald Trump’s close relationship
with the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts and in April 2022
he praised the work of the Heritage Foundation saying they are “going to lay the
groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your
movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save
America”11
A large number of well-funded, influential organisations have also been
involved, as well as a huge number of former senior staffers loyal to Donald Trump.
According to an analysis by CNN “In total at least 140 people who worked in the
Trump administration have had a hand in drafting Project 2025”. 12
A review of the
14 hours of leaked training video for the Presidential Academy shows that 29 of
the 36 speakers worked for Donald Trump in some capacity13
.
His efforts to publicly disavow Project 2025 are further compromised by the
selection of Senator J.D. Vance as his VP running mate, given Mr. Vance’s close
alliance with the Heritage Foundation President. Senator Vance has written the
foreword to the President of the Heritage Foundation’s forthcoming book, Dawn’s
Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. The book was originally
scheduled for release in September but given the scrutiny that Project 2025 is
under it has been pushed back until a week after the US election. Senator Vance’s
public positions on abortion and traditional family, immigration and ideology are
closely aligned to the Project14
.
8
The Project uses a myriad of tactics to dismantle the existing international and
foreign policy system with proposals on how it should function in the future. Four
key strategies stand out, and their impact is even greater when considered along-
side other global anti-gender and anti-SRHR movements. These strategies can
be broadly described as:
1. Dismantling the administrative state and politicising the civil service.
One of the central promises of the Project is to “dismantle the administrati-
ve state and return self-governance to the American people15
”. This promi-
se is outlined in every chapter of the Mandate along with details of politici-
sing senior positions throughout the government16
. The Mandate document
argues that a large state is both wasteful and not in the spirit of the original
intent of the Constitution and that it interferes with the free will of the
American people by imposing ‘woke’ ideals on them. One of many examp-
les cited is that “bureaucrats at the State Department infuse US foreign aid
programs with woke extremism about ‘intersectionality’ and abortion.” The
Mandate lays out which tools can be used to ‘fire the supposedly unfireable
federal bureaucrats and how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of
government”.17
2. Co-opting the narrative and misinformation on human rights. What
is notable about this, and other transnational ultra-conservative and anti-
rights agendas and movements is how they have understood the tools of
human rights progress and used those same tools, strategies, and tactics
to undermine human rights, whether globally in multilateral UN settings,
through diplomacy or in programmatic work.18
For example, the Manda-
te positions the promotion of the right to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights as
countering the right to religious freedoms and ‘anathema to the traditional
societies’ were USAID works. It positions protections on the basis of gender,
LGBTQ+ status and race as ‘discrimination’ and it speaks about the need to
create a healthy culture of respect for life, the family, sovereignty and
‘authentic human rights’ in international organisations and agencies.19
Furthermore, in 2019 under the Trump administration, then Secretary of
State, Mike Pompeo established the US Commission on Unalienable
Human Rights which focused on the primacy of civil and political rights
grounded in the nation’s founding principle and the broader tradition of
natural law and natural rights. In doing so, the Commission co-opted
terminology and framing inherent in the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights and other Human Rights agreements.20
3. Breaking down the rules based multilateral order, the architecture
that supports the channelling of official development assistance and the
silencing of dissenting voices.
Proposed measures include using the multilateral systems as an extension
of US foreign policy, withdrawing from agencies that do not comply and
creating obstructions that stall international agreements (an approach
known as norm spoiling). These approaches would have a significant
negative impact on the rules based multilateral order. As the final section
of the report shows, the proposed additional expansions of the Mexico
City Policy (MCP) will significantly affect people’s access to comprehen-
sive SRHR considerably hamper the delivery of all foreign assistance (not
just US foreign assistance). Thousands of local partners risk being mired in
bureaucracy and “gagged”. The impact would lead to a dramatic shrinking
civic space and an erosion of human rights and democracy.
2.2 Project 2025’s Approach
9
4. Building a new international system with faith-based and private sector
approaches at its core. The final strategy rests on what the authors propose
can fill the gaps and where money can be reprogrammed. The Mandate calls
consistently for the integration of faith-based approaches and religious
freedoms into all USAID country cooperation strategies, the implementa-
tion of the Geneva Consensus Declaration and the transfer of financing
to faith-based actors and the private sector.21
2.3 What are the main provisions within Project 2025 relevant to
work on Gender, Human Rights and SRHR in global spaces?
The solution to all of the above problems is not to tinker with this
or that government program, to replace this or that bureaucrat.
These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national
sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by
trimming and reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees—root
and branch. International organisations and agreements that erode
our Constitution, rule of law, or popular sovereignty should not be
reformed: They should be abandoned.
The Mandate for Leadership, page 12
This section focuses on analysis of the Mandate Chapter 2 (the Executive Office),
written by Russ Vought, the former Director of the Office of Management and
Budget during the Trump administration; Chapter 6 (the Department of State),
written by Kiron Skinner who served as the Director of Policy Planning at the State
Department under Donald Trump and Chapter 9 (the Agency for International
Development), written by Max Primorac, who served as the senior advisor to the
USAID administrator during the Donald Trump’s administration. The Heritage
Foundation claims that 64% of their policy recommendations were used in the
first Trump Presidency This section provides a brief overview and analysis of a few
key areas. The aim is to make the Mandate more accessible and to provide context
for this report’s recommendations. Project 2025 proposes:
i) Centralising additional power in the hands of the President. Some of
the key strategies to achieve this are through direct partisan appointments,
a stronger focus on executive actions that do not require congressional
oversight and the restructuring of federal agencies. Frustrated by activities
of senior career executives, a few months before Donald Trump left office
in 2021, he issued Executive Order 1395722
known as schedule F. Schedule
F meant that federal civil servants, who previously had protections from
political influence, could be fired and replaced by political appointees.
Schedule F was revoked by President Biden two days after taking office.
To slow down the reinstatement of schedule F by any future administration,
President Biden’s Office of Personnel Management has passed a new rule
to protect federal employees and make it more difficult to reinstate
schedule F. Key informants indicated it would now be cumbersome for
a new Trump administration to reinstate schedule F but not impossible.
Within the Mandate, they indicate their intention to reinstate schedule F
and USAID has been identified as one of the agencies to pilot-test this
executive order.23
ii) International Organisations. The Project plans to fundamentally alter
American diplomacy, using its voice in the UN and other international bo-
dies to push anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ agendas, and adopt an alter-
native narrative on “human rights’’ distinct from the Universal Declaration
10
of Human Rights, the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights,
the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights etc.
The project also plans to abandon international organisations and traditio-
nal diplomatic and security alliances.24
To pursue this alternative agenda
The Mandate includes designating a political appointee to help coordinate
cross agency efforts to hold “the US government’s multilateral partners
(U.N. and WHO agencies and other international organisations) to a higher
level of financial and programmatic accountability, including assurances
that language promoting abortion will be removed from U.N. documents,
policy statements, and technical literature”25
. It is clear from the Mandate
that international organisations, are expected to support the US foreign po-
licy interests and if they do not the US should give serious consideration to
withdrawing from them as the previous Trump Administration did with the
Human Rights Council or terminate/reduce funding for them as in the case
of UNESCO, UNRWA and WHO. The Mandate further lays out proposals
to transition from large awards to ‘corrupt’ UN agencies and global NGOs
to local, especially faith-based entities and unleash the power of America’s
private sector.26
iii) Agency for International Development (USAID). The chapter on USAID
proposes a comprehensive restructuring of the Agency. A number of areas
are highlighted which if implemented in their entirety would substantially
reshape the nature of US official development assistance and all but elimi-
nate its gender and human rights work. It would also give rise to substantial
increases in funding to private sector and faith-based groups. Overall, the
Mandate proposes cuts in USAID’s global footprint and budget and it de-
cries how USAID programs are “infused with woke extremisms about ‘inter-
sectionality’ and abortion.”27
It proposes the rapid deployment of political
appointees in key positions including senior attorneys, human resources,
and the appointment of a senior officer to report on adherence to the ad-
ministration’s policy priority including protecting life in foreign assistance
(PLFA) critical race theory, climate change, gender and diversity and inclu-
sion.
iv) Refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children and Families
.
Democratic Administrations have nearly erased what females are and
what femininity is through ‘gender’ policies and practices.
The Mandate for Leadership, page 259
Significant changes affecting foreign policy and international assistance
related to gender would be undertaken. This includes shutting down the
White House Gender Policy Council (GPC), which advances gender equity
and equality in both domestic and foreign policy development and takes an
intersectional, whole of government, approach.28
Large-scale adjustments
to USAID are proposed, such as restructuring the USAID Office of Gender
Equality and Women’s Empowerment and positioning it as USAID’s Office
of Women, Children, and Families. This would include eliminating the more
than 180 gender advisors across USAID and the position of Senior Gender
Coordinator. This post would be renamed the Senior Coordinator of the
Office of Women, Children, and Families and be explicitly pro-life and poli-
tically appointed. The approach to ”Integrating Gender Equality and Fema-
le Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle” will be modified to align with
the new focus. It is proposed to remove all references and language such
11
as gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-
sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and anything
inclusive of diverse gender identities from all programming material, USAID
communications and outreach materials29
. President Biden’s memorandum
on “Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad,” issued on January
28, 2021 would also be revoked.
Eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). USAID currently pla-
ces importance on DEI . Within The Mandate this is seen as racializing the
agency and creating a hostile work environment and it recommends that
the next conservative administration should issue a directive that ceases
the promotion of the DEI agenda and the ‘bullying LGBTQ+ agenda’. It
should dismantle USAID’s DEI apparatus by eliminating the Chief Diversity
Officer position along with DEI advisers and committees, cancelling mo-
nitoring mechanisms and removing requirements in contracts and grants.
Furthermore, the Mandate aims to rescind employer regulations ‘prohibi-
ting discrimination’ (sic) on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity,
transgender status, and sex characteristics.30
Ending diplomatic support and assistance for the LGBTQ+ community
The Mandate dramatically erodes support for the LGBTQ+ community do-
mestically and abroad calling for the removal of policies and programs that
respect and protect the community to be replaced by policies that advoca-
te for stable, married, nuclear families (by which is meant heterosexual uni-
ons).31
It also calls for an end to using US diplomatic soft power in Africa to
protect the rights of LGBTQ+ communities, and refers to this diplomacy as
‘imposing pro-LGBT initiatives’. This call almost certainly refers to the pas-
sage of the anti-homosexuality Act in Uganda32
. In response to its passage
US President Biden issued a statement calling the Act a tragic violation of
universal human rights and in response to it he put in place visa restrictions,
some sanctions, and signalled a decrease in aid and trade engagement.33
The signposting from the Mandate is clear - a new Republican government
is being asked not to stand up for the rights of LGBTQ+ populations around
the world. This grave situation calls for strengthening the interconnected-
ness of the movements that erode LGBTQ+ human rights, the right to bodi-
ly autonomy, abortion, and democracy.
12
v) Restrictions on access to Safe Abortion
.
The next Administration should ensure that USAID’s goal in service
of its mission is to help protect and propel all members of society—
women, children, and men—from conception to natural death
The Mandate for Leadership, page 260
The Mandate similarly proposes a number of foreign policy, multilateral and ODA
modalities to limit access globally to safe abortion and it applauds the efforts
during the Trump presidency that resulted in the Geneva Consensus Declaration.
It calls on any future Republic administration to ensure that abortion is not ‘fun-
ded or promoted’ in international programs or multilateral organisations and calls
on the US government to create a coalition of like minded nations to shape “the
work of international agencies by functioning as a united front”.34
The intention of
this call can be seen as a commitment to engage more concertedly in norm spoil-
ing through multilateral processes and to influence other ‘public interest organi-
sations’ such as the Global Fund, the Global Financing Facility (GFF) etc through
collective action.
At a minimum the Mandate calls on the reinstatement of the expanded MCP
(applied to all foreign NGO health recipients and subrecipients) and the defun-
ding of UNFPA. However, the central proposal of the Mandate is to dramatically
expand the MCP by extending it in four key areas:
1. Remove exemptions for US International NGOs. This expansion also app-
ly to contracts (which are often awarded to private sector organisations).
2. Extend the MCP to Protect Life in all Foreign Assistance (PLFA),
including humanitarian assistance (covering about $66 billion of
and thousands of partners).
3. Remove exemptions for Public International Organisations (PIOs) and
Multilateral organisations (this includes Gavi, the Global Fund, the Global
Financing Facility and UN entities).
4. Apply the policy to bilateral government-to-government agreements
These proposals and their implications are discussed in a special section later in
the report given the scope, scale, and magnitude of impact their implementation
would have.
13
2.4 Project 2025 is already here
Project 2025 lays out a policy mandate for the next Republican President that
would have severe implications for human rights and international cooperation.
However, it is important for policymakers to realise that many of the significant
elements of Project 2025 are already here. The policy proposals are being rolled
out and they will continue to be rolled out even if President Trump loses the
election in November 2024.35
One example of how Project 2025 is already having an impact is the rollout of the
Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD) and the development of its operational
arm Protego.36
Work cultivating national signatories did not cease with President
Trump’s departure from office in 2021. The GCD’s continued influence has been
spearheaded by Valerie Huber, a former Trump official who went on to form the In-
stitute of Women’s Health (IWH) in 202137
. The GCD is currently being hosted by
the government of Hungary with support from IWH. The IWH, is a US anti-abor-
tion, anti-comprehensive sexuality education US INGO. It is listed among those
organisations on Project 2025’s Advisory Board and Valerie Huber is a contribu-
ting author to the Project. As a multi-country political declaration, the GCD lack-
ed an implementing modality. In response to this, the IWH created their ‘Holistic
Framework for Women’s Health, known as Protego.38
Research by Ipas has shown
that Protego’s core aim is the operationalization of the GCD. A key component
of Protego is “International Engagement’’ which is dedicated to discrediting the
work of the multilateral system and their promotion of the human rights of women,
girls, and LGBTQ+ people39
. Protego is envisaged as an agreement at the highest
level of government. Guatemala is piloting Protego, and it was recently launched
in Uganda by First Lady Janet Museveni. Fifteen countries are said by the IWH to
be considering launching the approach in their country.40
Figure 1: Current Geneva Consensus Declaration Signatories
GDC Member States
While Protego is not mentioned by name in The Mandate, it is implied in a recom-
mendation for launching a new approach that focuses on ‘Holistic Health Care
and Support for Women, Children, and Families’. It asks that the next leadership
at USAID focus attention on women’s and children’s health (including unborn
children) as well as health risks across the lifespan41
.
A second example of the operationalisation of Project 2025 is the large funding
flows and influence from US evangelical Christian groups to influence and remove
the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in Africa. These groups were directly enga-
ged in influencing the recently passed anti-homosexuality Act in Uganda. Orga-
.
Former GDC Member States
14
nisations such as the Fellowship Foundation are thought to have spent over $20
million in Uganda, to bolster local support for anti-LGBTQ+ laws between 2008
and 201842
and evangelical Christian influence has been instrumental in drafting
and promoting the legislation43
. The US Supreme Court’s anti-abortion decision
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health organisation, (which overturned Roe v. Wade),
was also cited by the Ugandan Constitutional Court as part of its justification to
pass the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act in March 2023. Specifically, Uganda’s
court stated that it is within a nation’s sovereignty to define and regulate rights
according to its ”history and traditions”, similar to how the U.S. reconsidered abor-
tion rights.44
These decisions are important because of the emphasis on cultural
and societal norms over democracy and rule of law and international human rights
standards. The linkage illustrates how international judicial decisions, particularly
from influential courts like the US Supreme Court (and backed by US money and
advocacy) can influence legal arguments in other countries.
Other examples include attempts by Republican congressmen to pass legislation
aimed at restricting funding for international non-governmental organisations
that support gender-affirming care, surgeries, or promote transgender rights. The-
se efforts have been part of a broader strategy to embed anti-LGBTQ+ provisions
into various must-pass appropriations bills45
. While these measures have not yet
been successfully passed into law, their inclusion in significant funding bills high-
lights ongoing legislative efforts to curtail transgender rights domestically and
internationally.
This bill came after the publication of Project 2025 so it is not specifically mentio-
ned within it, but it raises concern that a transgender “gag-rule” may be unilateral-
ly enacted should Donald Trump become the next US President.
These cases show that even if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election,
Project 2025 will still be with us. It will just be delivered through different mecha-
nisms. Furthermore, if Kamala Harris wins the election but loses one or other of
the houses it will have a significant impact on whether budgets or legislation can
pass.
With this in mind, Project 2025 should not be seen as a Mandate for the next four
years, but as a plan for decades and European partners should be planning accor-
dingly with a mix of long and short term coordinated strategies.
15
3. WHY SHOULD PROJECT 2025 CONCERN EUROPEAN
GOVERNMENTS, CSOs AND LIKEMINDED ALLIES?
3.1 Geopolitical context and solidarity
Project 2025 has significant geopolitical implications. The alignment of US fo-
reign policy with ultra-conservative or populistic agendas, as proposed by Project
2025, risks undermining human rights values globally. This is particularly con-
cerning in the global south, where as a result of new US positioning they may by
default - ally to authoritarian regimes that also undermine human rights globally
such as Russia. This shift has significant implications for the geopolitical landsca-
pe potentially diminishing Europe’s ability to work in support of local civil society
actors in human rights and democratic governance. As an example, in the African
context, the Lusaka Agenda emphasises the importance of maintaining solidarity
and support for human rights, gender equality, and SRHR, which could be severely
compromised under Project 2025​. Strong support for local agendas like Lusaka
and stronger integration of SRHR, climate, human rights, democratic governance
and security may help position countries in the global south to resist the rolling
back of human rights standards, but that will only prevail if there is space for a
strong civil society voice at the table.
3.2 The Effect on UN agencies and the UN system
Project 2025’s proposals to defund or reshape international organisations like the
UN agencies and the WHO will disrupt the global aid architecture, global solidari-
ty and foreign policy. European donors often work through these multilateral or-
ganisations and rely on them for global solidarity and norms and standards setting.
This in turn helps provide principles for ODA and allows for it to be delivered ef-
fectively. US withdrawal, conditional funding to the UN and/or continued norms
spoiling in multilateral negotiations based on ultraconservative agendas compro-
mises the UN’s ability to function, and also changes how European partners work
with and through them.
3.3 Impact on health and SRHR outcomes
The U.S is the largest contributor to overseas development assistance, with $66
billion allocated in 202346
and their assistance in health is approximately $12.9
billion (see below). Changes in US policy, such as the proposed implementation
of the Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance (PLFA) and other measures outlined
earlier in this report will severely affect global SRHR, health and development
outcomes and progress towards Universal Health Coverage. It will seriously dis-
rupt European development assistance by limiting the number of collaborating
partners in countries as well as restraining their activities. In addition, this shift
towards ideological approaches over evidence and human rights-sensitive would
curtail civic voice, human rights, and democracy in partner countries, directly im-
pacting the effectiveness of European official development assistance and results.
Countries with a large dependence on US ODA will likely be impacted the most.
Estimates need to be generated to understand where, when and how the biggest
impacts will materialise so that partners can prepare.
16
The US is by far the largest donor government to global health,
SRHR, HIV-programming and Family Planning (figures in USD, actual):
• ODA total: 66 billion (2023).47
• Global health: 12.9 billion (2023).48
• Family Planning: 583 million. Followed by the Netherlands at 217
million, U.K: 175 million, Sweden: 121 million (2022).49
• SRHR 9.35 billion: Followed by the UK: 734 million, Germany: 651 million,
France 531 million(2022).50
More than half of US' SRHR disbursements and a large part of its Family Planning
and RMNCH disbursements came from its support to STD control including HIV
& AIDS51
. The US continues to be the largest donor to HIV programs at 6.1 billion,
providing 74% of all donor government HIV funding52
.
17
4. PREVIOUS US POLICIES RESTRICTING ACCESS
TO SAFE AND LEGAL ABORTION
The Mexico City Policy is not just an abortion restriction. It’s called
a gag rule because it’s about speech. It’s a way for Republican
Administrations and their supporters to buy out the ideological
composition of governments and organisations around the world.
The moment we are in today with anti-gender movements globally
is because the first Trump administration bought or forced the
silence of civil society and muffled the advocacy movement.
That is the point of the Global Gag Rule.
Beirne Roose-Snyder, senior director, Perclusion Project, Key Informant
4.1 The Mexico City Policy (MCP)
In 1984 the administration of US President Reagan was the first to implement the
Mexico City Policy (MCP) which is also known as ‘the Global Gag Rule’ (GGR).
The original MCP prohibited foreign Non-Governmental Organisations (fNGOs)
that received US government family planning monies from using US funds or their
own funds for performing, providing counselling, referring, or advocating for safe
abortion as a method of family planning. 53 54
That meant that even if a local organisation was providing information and ser-
vice on abortion paid for by another donor, or their own funds, they would not be
eligible for family planning money from the US government. To remain eligible for
US Government (USG) family planning funds they would need to certify compli-
ance with the policy. Essentially agreeing to be ‘gagged’. They would stop all work
on abortion-related information, referral, or services in exchange for USG family
planning funding. The policy at the time applied to $300-600 million in family
planning monies per annum. The GGR has since been implemented with every
republican administration and repealed with every democratic one.
In 2017, President Trump reinstated and radically expanded the Global Gag Rule
applying this policy to all health assistance in what became known as Protecting
Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA). This increased the level of funding
affected to an estimated $12 billion per annum in fiscal year 2018 and affected
over 1,300 global health projects.55
These figures do not include how much of
other donors’ money or domestic money was gagged. Historically the MCP was
limited to only USAID funding. Under the expansion the restrictions applied to
all US global health awards, affecting numerous US government agencies with
programs abroad. It also extended to programs awarded through the State
Department. This meant that for the first time the President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was bound by the MCP. Given the integrated nature of
health sector responses, over 2/3 rds of health funds were linked in some way to
supporting HIV and AIDS programming and 2/3 were linked to Africa.56
In 2019 in
an unprecedented move further guidance was issued stating that the GGR would
now apply to sub-recipients of “gagged” organisations even if they do not receive
any US foreign assistance. Overnight, local organisations with no programs
supported by the US government became subject to the policy simply because
they were subgrantees of an organisation that did57
.
18
.
Figure 2: How expanded MCP (2019) Gags Local Organizations includning
those with no US funding
The explanation of how this works to gag other donors’ projects can be explai-
ned in Figure 2 using a hypothetical situation of a project funded by Sida. In this
situation, a local community Youth SRHR NGO (at the bottom, second from
left), is 100% supported by Sida to provide comprehensive SRHR information to
young people, inclusive of information on safe abortion care. Sida passes its funds
through the Ethiopia Public Health Foundation (EPHF) who is primarily respon-
sible for the overall project. This local Youth SRHR NGO becomes gagged even
though it does not receive a single dollar in USAID funds and it has not signed the
gag rule. It becomes gagged because it is sub-granted by the EPHF to deliver the
project. The EPHF decided to sign the gag rule so it can continue to receive funds
from the US. The consequence of being gagged is that the Youth SRHR NGO
can not provide comprehensive SRHR programs and must remove any reference
to abortion or safe abortion in its materials. To provide for comprehensive SRHR
for youth in communities, Sida will need to find another partner providing youth
friendly information and services. In the geographic area where the project ope-
rates there may not be another partner. This is the system that existed under the
2019 expansions. Under future scenarios this may expand to all US foreign assis-
tance.
A significant amount of research has been done since the MCP has been
implemented to show the devastating impacts of the policy expansion, not just
on access to abortion information and services, but on overseas assistance during
Covid, maternal health programming and to HIV services. Organisations suppor-
ted by PEPFAR to support integrated HIV prevention, treatment and care with
comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights have been among the
hardest hit.
The irony is that the GGR applies even in countries where abortion is legal.
The majority of countries that receive US global health funding allow for legal
abortion in at least one case not permissible by the exemptions of the gag rule
(rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother). By applying the gag rule in these
instances, the United States is attempting to override or disregard local laws58
.
The GGR was rescinded in early 2021 when President Biden took office.
Should Trump win the next Presidential election he will almost certainly re-apply
the MCP and it is assumed that he will take guidance for its expansion from the
Mandate for Leadership outlined in Project 2025.
19
5. SPECIAL SECTION: PROPOSED FURTHER EXPANSIONS
OF THE MEXICO CITY POLICYAND OTHER MEASURES
TO CURTAIL ACCESS TO SAFE ABORTION
Should it be implemented, Project 2025 seeks at a minimum to reinstate the PLG-
HA and block funding to the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA by reinsta-
ting the Kemp-Kasten Amendment59
. However, the proposals cut much deeper,
recommending four areas of significant expansions60
. The implication of four ex-
pansions of the PLGHA and how US-based NGOs are preparing and responding
are outlined below.
Expansion 1 – Apply the MCP to US-based International NGOs and their
recipients and sub recipients
In the US the 1973 Helms Amendment, prohibits US NGOs from using US foreign
assistance to fund abortion as a “method of family planning” and is in place even
during Democratic administrations61
. However, under Helms, US-based INGOs
are not ‘gagged’ and they can receive funding to provide abortion information
or services through other sources such as the Swedish, British, Canadian funders
and foundations. Under Project 2025 there are proposals to expand the GGR
to cover US-based INGOs and that this would be applied to contracts as well as
cooperative agreements. This would mean that US-based INGOs that receive
non-USG monies for comprehensive SRHR inclusive of abortion information or
services would no longer be eligible for USG funding. Under this expansion
US-based INGOs would need to make a choice whether or not to be gagged.
For organisations that agree to be gagged it would mean forgoing important
funding for safe abortion programs that are supported through other donors.
Since the MCP was first applied in 1984 there was a long-held belief that US
based NGOs could not be gagged. This was formed from three main points i)
existing case law, ii) a constitutional right to free speech under the First Amend-
ment and iii) up until 2 years ago Constitutional Rights to Abortion domestically.
After the proposals in Project 2025 emerged, US based INGOs have been me-
eting and their legal counsels have been reviewing provisions. After discussions
with many US based INGOs, it remains uncertain whether or not they could legal-
ly be subject to the policy or not. It seems however the larger question would be
whether and how they would fight any attempted gag order which would likely
end up in the courts on the basis of the First Amendment. However, this might
ultimately end up in the Supreme Court, which (with the exception of the recent
ruling on mifepristone access) has not been favourable to these issues and the
court has not relied on precedent as much as previous courts62
.
The implications for large US-based INGOs if subjected to the policy would be
immense. If a US INGO refused to be ‘gagged’ they would be ineligible for any
USAID money. One INGO key informant indicated that USG money is about
50% of the budget for their organisation and for others, it is higher. Some INGOs
do not take US Government money for their overseas work such as Planned Pa-
renthood Foundation America (PPFA). Six organisations are specifically called out
in Project2025 and would likely be the first to be targeted. These are PSI, Pathfin-
der, PATH, Population Council, EngenderHealth, Women Care International, but
the policy would undoubtedly be
applied uniformly.
20
Expansion 2 – Extension of the Mexico City Policy to Protect Life in all Foreign
Assistance (PLFA), including humanitarian assistance.
This expansion of the MCP to all foreign assistance was initially proposed in a
bill in January 2021, which was unsuccessful. It is re-proposed in Project 202563
.
If it was passed by a future Trump administration it would mean applying the ex-
panded MCP to all foreign assistance and all US and non-US recipients. It would
cover $66 billion of US foreign assistance (FY2023) of which $51.5 billion is esti-
matedto be provided to non-USG prime recipients.This is tens of billions of dollars
greater than the previous policy of PLHA which affected $12 billion of health
assistance. It would also cover 178 countries (an increase from 93 under PLGHA)
and approximately 2,400 non-USG prime recipients and thousands more sub-re-
cipients, including sub-recipients who do not have any USG funding and may be
supported by European donors and partners.64 65
The majority of this funding in FY 22 was provided to multilateral organisations
($29.8 billion) which under proposed expansion 3 (outlined below) would be
newly subject to the policy. US based INGO recipients received $15.1 billion
and would be newly subject to the policy as outlined under Expansion 1 (above).
Foreign governments received $862 million and there are proposals to subject
them to the policy under expansion 4 (outlined below).
However, the greatest concern rests with the application of the MCP to the hu-
manitarian sector which currently receives $16.4 billion in assistance each year.
Project 2025 specifically cites the inclusion of medication abortion on the essen-
tial drugs list in the Covid-19 Humanitarian Response Plan as one of the reasons
to justify the expansion to humanitarian organisations. Safe Abortion Care is also
included in the Minimum Initial Service Package for humanitarian responses.66
US INGOs are currently organising to understand the impacts of these potential
events. They are ‘running the financial numbers’ to see if they could continue to
operate and some are looking at alternate structures. They are sharing information
through spaces such as the US based International Community of Family Planning
organisations and the network of CEOs working in Reproductive Health.
The implications for comprehensive health and SRHR programs and services
would be significant. US based NGOs have some of the most advanced infra-
structure, policies and systems and provide high quality technical support in
many areas and they have an ability to work at scale. A loss of them as partners for
European governments and communities might be significant. An analysis could
be done with major European donors to gain a fuller picture of which US INGOs
they work with to provide comprehensive SRHR programming and the impact
should they no longer be available. Similarly, analysis could be undertaken to
understand how much funding US INGOs are receiving from the US government
and the impact of this loss in funding on unintended pregnancies, unsafe abor-
tions and SRHR service delivery.
21
Many settings lack a wide array of NGOs to work with. This is particularly prono-
unced in the humanitarian ecosystem. If some organizations are gagged, they are
unavailable to extend life-saving comprehensive SRHR in these environments,
where GBV is very high, and rape is often used as a weapon of war. If organisations
choose not to be gagged, they will not be able to receive USAID funds. The sheer
scale and complications of the bureaucracy and compliance in fast moving set-
tings is hard to fathom. There is reason for concern that a vacuum may be left in
these settings and with the complexity of implementing the rule.
The GGR would apply to local organisations even if they do not receive USG
funds. In this way, even a single dollar of U.S. money taints an entire organisation’s
operating budget from all sources and who they partner with.67
The impacts are
enormous:
Impact on Broad-based community organisations that work on education or
women’s agriculture, might also have SRHR programs inclusive of information,
referrals and services for abortion. Their work on abortion (even if funded from
non-USG sources) would make them ineligible to receive ANY USG funds. A loss
of USAID funding, results in a loss of staff, operating capability, and overheads
which can hamper Sida/other donor programs even if those programs are unrela-
ted to abortion.
Impacts on the Integration of services- health services have become more in-
tegrated in the last decade, particularly with moves to strengthen primary health
care. The expansion of the PLGHA interrupts service integration and health sys-
tems strengthening, affecting services and patient referrals in a variety of health
areas.
Localisation - Moreover, the US government is currently pursuing a policy of loca-
lisation and is actively looking to engage more local organisations across a range
of programming. In the future, the GGR is applied to these local organisations. It
will limit the range of partners that other donors could work with on comprehensi-
ve SRHR.
Punitive and pre-emptive selection bias is a risk for local organisations. Using
the Global Fund as an example, Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCMs) have
the responsibility to select Principal Recipients for the Global Fund grants. CCMs
may have a selection bias against certain Principal Recipients based on whether
they provide comprehensive SRHR. CCMs may decide not to choose those orga-
nisations as principal recipients for fear that all their sub-recipient systems will be
gagged.
Many other sectors would be affected as described above as would the programs
and partnerships of non-US donors69
. Due to the expansion to sub-recipients
(even those with no USG funding) other bilateral government investments in
essence become gagged (figure 2 previously). This raises an important question
concerning interferance with the sovereignty and democratic functioning of other
countries if US policy restrictions are attached to a foreign government’s own
appropriations and expenditure.70
22
Box 2. Public International Organisation
According to USAID, Public International Organisation (PIOs) include
but is not limited to:
• A selection of UN organisations, funds and programmes and related
organisations, including UNFPA, UNAIDS, WHO and UNWOMEN.
• The category “Other International Organisations”, that is GAVI, the
Global Fund to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis (the Global Fund).
• International finance institutions such as the World Bank Group.
Expansion 3 – International Organisations - Remove any exemptions for Public
International Organisations and Multilateral Organisations (Box 2)71
In the past, organisations and agencies categorised by USAID as “Public Interna-
tional Organisations”(PIO), like the Global Fund or Gavi, have not had to certify
compliance with the expanded MCP when they have entered into new agre-
ements for US funding. However, Project 2025 proposes to change that and ask
PIOs and the United Nations to certify compliance.
In total in FY 22 the US government provided $29.8 billion to multilateral organi-
sations and PIOs of which $18 billion was for the UN. According to the Council on
Foreign Relations, the United States remains the largest donor to the UN accoun-
ting for one-third of the funding for the body’s collective budget.72
According to
key informants, the mechanism used to defund the UN may be the 1981 Siljander
Amendment which forbids US funding from being used to lobby for or against
abortion, though it may also be applied through the GGR. Some elements of
this expansion could take effect quite quickly, such as removing voluntary
contributions for UN organisations, but full defunding would likely take more
time. The table below, covers only health focused funds and helps to clarify
the scale of US Government contributions in 2022, in USD:
• The Global Fund: 2 billion73
• Gavi: 271 million74
• WHO assessed contributions: 349 million75
• UNFPA (2023): 161.7 million, which represents 11% of UNFPA’s total bud-
get, 30 million was for core and 131 for humanitarian action (representing ¼
of their entire humanitarian budget).76
The expanded MCP and Public International Organisations -
The Global Fund example
Traditionally the MCP has not applied to PIOs and therefore the Global Fund
has not had to comply with the GGR institutionally at the global Secretariat level.
However previous gag rules did significantly affect its programs as can be seen in
figure 3 below.
23
Figure 3: How the expanded Mexico City Policy (2019)
Gagged Global Fund NGO Principal Recipiuents and Sub-recipients
.
Under the expanded MCP in 2019, many Global Fund Civil Society Principal Re-
cipients (PRs) had to take a decision on whether to comply with the GGR or not,
which also directly impacted on their sub-grantees77
. Analysis by amfAR (2019)
suggests up to 12% of Global Fund resources (over $1 billion) might have been
subjected to the GGR- with Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania among the most
affected countries in terms of the dollar amount. Importantly, the highest propor-
tion of Global Fund programming affected by the expanded MCP (PLGHA) was
for the most vulnerable populations – prevention programming for men who have
sex with men (at 49%) and prevention programs for adolescents and youth in and
out of school (at 39%) and removing Human Rights barriers to HIV services. These
high percentages are a factor of having relatively few partners working in these
areas and a large degree of overlap between the partners that USAID works with
and the global fund. 78
Most Global Fund principal recipients are still governments, and in crisis situations
the UN is responsible for a significant amount of delivery.79
As a result, in the past
the MCP has not applied to them. However, the Mandate for Leadership proposes
‘closing the loopholes’ and gagging governments and the UN. In addition, the
Mandate proposes to gag PIOs directly which could mean directly gagging all glo-
bal health organisations.
The implications are enormous80
. This harms relationships with other donors and
recipients, as it is an imposition of regressive US policies on the taxpayer resources
of other nations and infringes on the sovereignty of host countries.
The Mandate does not provide details on how Public International Organisations
such as Gavi, the Global Fund, the Global Financing Facility would be asked to
comply with an expanded MCP. In the Global Fund’s case it is not straightforward
as the funds are administered at country level through Principal Recipients, and
not managed by the Secretariat. If the Global Fund Secretariat was asked to ‘cer-
tify’ compliance with the MCP before entering into new agreements with the US
government, this would be contentious and would presumably need to be agreed
by the Global Fund Board and Technical Review Panel, posing considerable
challenges for an organisation that prides itself on evidence informed interven-
tions and as a leader on human rights. It will be important to proactively look at the
possible implications of a gag for the main ‘health’ PIOs, the GFATM, GFF
and Gavi.
24
Expansion 4 - Apply restriction to government-to-government bilateral
agreements.
The fourth area of expansion calls on a future Republican Administration to use
the Geneva Consensus Declaration as a cornerstone for its foreign policy and
international assistance strategies. It proposes aligning all US foreign policy
engagements with the GCD’s principles, which include protecting life, promoting
women's health, supporting the family as the basic unit of society and defending
national sovereignty' (sic). This alignment is seen as a means to ‘build a coalition of
nations’ that share these values and to shape the policies of international organi-
sations accordingly by functioning as a united front and limiting bilateral assistan-
ce to those countries who are signatories.81
This proposal is a political tool, and while legally it may be difficult to put this in
place, key informants suggested that pressure could be exerted on countries,
particularly if those countries receive significant amounts of ODA and have
progressive abortion laws (e.g. Mozambique). Most of these countries are those
in Southern Africa that also receive large amounts of support for HIV. Once again
suggesting that potentially HIV programming would be hit harder than other
areas. There is a lot that could be done to support and prepare countries from a
legal as well as financing perspective.
25
6. SUMMARY IMPLICATIONS FOR
A NEW EXPANDED GLOBAL GAG RULE
IN LINE WITH PROJECT 2025’s PROPOSAL
The full implications of such a massive expansion need to be fully worked out, but
much has been learned from the MCP expansion in Donald Trump’s first Adminis-
tration. The new proposals in Project 2025 would be an order of magnitude grea-
ter than those implemented in 2017-2021. Six areas of impact are highlighted:
• Weaken and silence civil society in countries at a time when they are
countering polarisation and civic space is shrinking. The GGR fractu-
res and polarises civil society and human rights advocacy in countries. A
massive expansion would cause chaos and confusion and divide countries
into two camps. In addition to abortion information and services being im-
pacted, it would affect those organisations working on maternal and child
health, adolescent SRHR, HIV and human rights the hardest. Decades of
work bringing governments and civil society together may be replaced by
a reluctance to do joint projects due to uncertainty on whether the part-
ner will be gagged or ineligible for US government funding. The expanded
MCP, also silences civil society involved in policy, legal, governance, and
accountability in health. This would be happening at the same time that
anti-human rights, anti-gender movements are emboldened and when fai-
th based groups are anticipated to receive additional funding (for example
for Protego).
• Substantially lower funds for SRHR will also directly impact the pro-
grams of European donors. Analysis needs to be undertaken to understand
the full scale and scope and in which the gag rule would impact on the
programs supported by European partners.
• Significant impact on the delivery of essential services. Disruptions
would create unacceptable service delays and a breakdown in integrated
services and primary health care. In many settings there aren’t many local
organisations to work with. For example, if a local partner is no longer avai-
lable to support adolescent SRHR because they are gagged it is not easy to
find another. Many local actors are effective because they have built trust
with communities and can not be easily replaced. When applied across all
ODA this may have the effect of breaking down the system so substantially
that it cannot be rebuilt.
• Impacts vulnerable groups the hardest. Earlier implementation of the
GGR shows that vulnerable groups were hit hardest, for example in areas
like youth-friendly services where trusted community relationships are pa-
ramount or in a context of a limited number of providers, such as in humani-
tarian settings.
• Break down institutional structures. Evidence from the application of
the MCP has shown that the legacy of the gag rule lives on long after it is
rescinded. Infrastructure and skills are lost and CSOs who have been gag-
ged under previous administrations need to re-establish their systems and
re-compete for projects and funding once the gag rule is lifted.
• Have a ‘chilling effect’ on local organisations and country govern-
ments. – The sheer complexity and misinterpretation of the MCP has led to
many cases of over-implementation by organisations who fear falling foul
of the rules. This is referred to as the chilling effect. If the MCP is expanded
beyond health to all foreign assistance, the task of explaining it to partners
with no background in health is enormous.
26
7. OVERALL CONCLUSION
Project 2025 is not a short-term plan but rather a strategy for decades. When it
is combined with other strands of the anti-gender movements it is increasingly
becoming a Gordian knot.
The implementation of Project 2025 poses significant challenges for global
SRHR, human rights, and democratic values. In its new iteration the proposed
further expansions to the MCP (while immensely damaging to SRHR) dismantles
the international aid architecture well beyond health and weakens the fabric of
societies.
Should Project 2025 and the expanded MCP be implemented it will have
profound impacts on global official development assistance, foreign policy and
human rights, well beyond the 4-year term of any Trump Presidency (should that
come to pass).
Should Donald Trump take office in 2025, it will be impossible to stop the appli-
cation of many of the policy proposals within the Mandate. With this in mind,
perhaps the strategy is to come to collective agreement on the areas where part-
ners can limit its impact, or slow down its implementation. This entails working
with key partners in the US (including political partners) and entering into diplo-
matic negotiations. Collective agreement among progressive European and other
partners will be essential.
European partners working on SRHR and gender equality globally need to consi-
der developing long-term, proactive, coordinated ‘big-tent’ strategies to counter
the effects of Project 2025. This includes raising awareness among like-minded
governments in the global north and south, countering misinformation, leveraging
influence through the multilateral systems to support comprehensive SRHR and
human rights programs​as well as funding the immediate gaps. An emergency
fund or emergency response plan could be considered.
In terms of the MCP specifically, the tap-on and tap-off approach of the MCP is
immensely damaging, and it is time for the world (led by countries in the global
south) to consider long-term strategies that allow partners to stop being held
hostage to it and to stop the imposition of this foreign policy impacting on local
sovereignty.
Large-scale efforts to support and amplify the voice and leadership of countries
and communities in the global south should be a priority. Some organising enti-
ties already exist and could be considered or repurposed as a convenor to bring
countries in the global south together (for example there is a global coordinating
body of CEOs for the National AIDS Commissions) to share information, influence
governments and reach civil society.82
Countries themselves need to identify the
principles of any strategy. Identifying entry points, such as through the Lusaka
Agenda could allow partners to support global health and human rights agendas
in a way that can permanently and positively reshape the power dynamics of
international assistance.
This is ultimately a foreign policy issue. While it needs strong vocal support from
actors in SRHR, it needs to be elevated to a higher level of diplomacy and have
leadership from civil society organisations working in the area of human rights
and democracy.
27
8. RECOMMENDATIONS – FOR EUROPEAN
CIVIL SOCIETYAND GOVERNMENTS
At global, regional, and country level and across sectors – what is at
stake is the years and years of infrastructure work that the human
rights community has done to bring the indivisibility and the inter-
dependence of human rights together. For women, when we’re talking
about human rights, there is almost always an element of SRHR that’s
relevant. That is why the opposition is targeting all aspects of coopera-
tion and human rights. They know as a community that we have done
a really great job of integrating SRHR services across all sorts of deve-
lopment assistance programs.
Rebecca Brown, Vice President Global Advocacy, Center for
Reproductive Rights, Key Informant
The following recommendations were informed by the key informants.
Recommendation 1 - Meet the moment
A. Break down silos. Address the fragmented nature of the movement responding
to global polarisation and Project 2025 and bring communities together under a
‘Big-Tent’ approach to ensure comprehensive and inclusive engagement across
communities focused on access to safe abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and even clima-
te83
.
B. Urgent Coordination. There is an urgent need for a stronger coordination
infrastructure for analytical work, information sharing and action. European
governments and CSOs should consider establishing and funding a time-limited
umbrella coordinating structure or repurposing an existing forum to facilitate
coordinated action. Some suggested that this should be housed in a platform
focused on democracy or human rights rather than SRHR in order to elevate
these issues in foreign policy circles. Or it could be situated as a consultancy.
A coordinator could be hired on a time-limited basis.
C. Develop the Action Agenda. Map out which coalitions have formed, what
action is taking place and where the gaps are. This could be organised by con-
stituencies, to understand what action European governments are taking and
through which fora and what action civil society are prioritising. Work with others
to set up a tracking and monitoring system in advance so that the effects of MCP
and other measures can be monitored and mitigated in real time, the impacts
known and information shared quickly.
Recommendation 2 – Raise awareness of Project 2025 among European
governments and amplify this to be a foreign policy priority
Elevate Project 2025 as a foreign policy issue that impacts democracy, human
rights and sovereignty. Recognize and mitigate the financial, programmatic,
and policy implications of Project 2025 and an expanded Global Gag Rule (GGR).
Develop diplomatic, programmatic and community strategies to counter its influ-
ence, ensuring coordinated actions among like-minded donor countries. Recog-
nize that the extension to gagging ODA from other countries is an imposition of
regressive US policies on the taxpayer resources of other nations.
28
Note that Project 2025 does not plan to create a vacuum, but rather to create a
space to fill with faith based and private sector responses. The starting point for
action is to look at the countries that are most likely to be affected (such as those
with a higher dependence on US funding).
Recommendation 3 – Counter Mis-Information
Implement proactive, systematic, and large-scale plans to counter misinformation
at country, regional, and global levels, including misinformation on human rights
provisions. Should the MCP policy be re-applied, ensure that clear and transpa-
rent information is provided to local organisations, governments and PIOs, along
with mitigating strategies to limit the ‘chilling effect’.
Recommendations 4 – Work closely with Global Public International
Organisations (such as the Global Fund, Gavi and the Global Financing Facility)
supporting them to prepare and be vocal in defence of human rights and the
impacts for these policies.
Encourage PIOs (starting with the health-related ones, Global Fund, Gavi, GFF)
to prepare, defend and raise awareness of the human rights impacts associated
with the implementation of Project 2025. This should include conducting organi-
sational legal assessments on the application of MCP and regressive anti-
LGBTQ+ policies. Support PIOs to issue proactive statements ensuring non-
discrimination against SRHR and LGBTQ+ organisations, principal recipients,
and sub-recipients. PIOs should conduct and release public impact analyses on
the effects of past MCP implementation and document future impacts82 83
.
European governments and CSOs should use their positions on global boards
and technical review panels, program policy committees, etc to assist PIOs in
these efforts. Similar action should be taken in support of UNFPA and UNAIDS
given that analysis shows that local actors engaged in SRHR and HIV program-
ming have been hit the hardest.
Recommendation 5 – European and other partners should establish an
emergency fund (or enhance an existing mechanism). This is necessary to
protect and grow civic space and expand gender responsive and human right
programs in support of LGBTQ+ and other CSOs in partner countries who will lose
US funding because they refuse to be gagged. Map and quantify the potential
gaps and impacts before the gaps occur. Have unified multi-donor discussions.
Recommendation 6 – Humanitarian – Undertake analysis and be prepared to
fill the gaps for humanitarian action, the impacts in this area would be immense
and hit the most vulnerable populations the hardest. Consider the impacts on
UNFPA’s humanitarian program and cover the defunded portion of UNFPA’s bud-
get. Without this the overall humanitarian response with local actors will
be significantly weakened.
Recommendation 7 - Redouble efforts to build and support the infrastructure
for a progressive Gender and SRHR movement with governments and other
actors leading from the Global South – The funding and political support of Eu-
ropean Governments is critical but substantial support is also needed for coordi-
nated voice and actions from governments and civil society in the global south.
Partners in Europe can work hand in hand with key allies, while letting them lead.
Mexico, Columbia, Sierra Leone, Nepal, Thailand, Cabo Verde, South Africa for
example – can be further supported to have a global voice to disrupt the incorrect
narrative and link with other countries in the global south. Find the existing spa-
ces in the global south where coordinated action is already happening. In terms of
the MCP specifically, the tap-on and tap-off approach of the MCP is immensely
29
damaging. It is time for the world (led by countries in the global south) to consider
long-term strategies that allow partners to stop being held hostage to it. Countri-
es where abortion is legal in some circumstances and where the gag rule is at odds
with the legal provisions, should be supported to speak out about the US, disre-
gard for local sovereignty. Encourage organisations not to accept to be gagged,
and help them organise locally.
Recommendation 8 – Leverage the influence of European governments
through multilateral systems, International Financial Institutions etc. This helps
position positive coordinated voices for human rights and dignity on multilateral
platforms and provides a platform to leverage additional funding.
By implementing these recommendations European civil society and govern-
ments can help proactively address the challenges posed by Project 2025,
support global human rights and SRHR initiatives, and ensure that local voices
are empowered and at the forefront of shaping the laws, policies and programs
that affect their communities.
30
ANNEX 1: 13 KEY INFORMANTS
1. Center for Reproductive Rights
Rebecca Brown, Vice President, Global Advocacy
2. EngenderHealth
Traci Baird, President and CEO
3. European Parliamentary Forum
Neil Datta, Executive Director and Founder
4. FosFeminista
Kemi Akinfaderin, Chief Global Advocacy Officer / Shiphrah Belonguel
5. The Global Fund
Dianne Stewart, Deputy Director and Head Donor Relations
6. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE)
Heidi Beirich, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder
7. IPAS
Gillian Kane, Senior Technical Manager for Policy and Advocacy /
Jennifer Davies, IPAS UK Director
8. Planned Parenthood Foundation of America (PPFA)
Caitlin Horrigan, Senior Director Global Advocacy/ Christina Krysinki,
Associate Director Global Advocacy
9. Preclusion Project
Beirne Roose-Snyder, Senior Director
10. UNFPA
Klaus Simoni Pederson – Chief Resource mobilisation
11. WHO/HRP
Aasa Hanna Mari Nihlen, Human Rights Advisor
*Other People / agencies were not in a position to be cited in the report.
31
FOoTNOTES
1
This report by drawing heavily on the expertise and analysis of key informants and
organisations
2
The Heritage Foundation
3
The Project 2025
4
What is project 2025? The Council for Global Equality, February 2024 and
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, Fact Sheet, Project 2025 A Primer.
5
“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology
and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding
up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual iberation, and child welfare.
It has no claim to First Amendment protection” Project 2025, page 5
6
The Mandate for Leadership Chapter 9.
7
KFF What the Election Could Mean for the Mexico City Policy and U.S. Foreign Aid
May 30th
, 2024
8
The Institute for Women’s Health
9
Phillips-Fein, Kim, “The Mandate for Leadership, Then and Now”, The Nation, June 4, 2024
10
Adler-Bell, Sam, “The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration”
The New York Times, Jan 10, 2024
11
Trump took a private flight with Project 2025 Leader in 2022, The Washington Post, Aug
2024 https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/08/07/trump-heritage-project-2025-ro-
berts/ downloaded 15th Aug 2024
12
“Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025”. CNN. 11 July 2024. Downloaded
15th Aug 2024 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/trump-allies-project-2025/index.
html An insight into how some authors to the Trump Administration are described further
below in the section on the Geneva Consensus Declaration
13
“Inside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos”. Propublica. 10th Aug 2024. Downloaded
20th Aug 2024 https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-vide-
os-trump-election
14
Alex Shephard. “Read J.D. Vance’s Violent Foreword to Project 2025 Leader’s New Book”.
The New Republic. July 30th 2024. https://newrepublic.com/article/184393/jd-vance-violent-
foreword-kevin-roberts-project-2025-leader-book
15
The Heritage Foundation 5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Dismantle the Federal
Bureaucracy, Aug 2023
16
Smith, David, The Guardian, Trump’s Project 2025 plot would take ‘wrecking ball’ to US
institutions, key democrats warn 11 June 2024 and key informant Interview Heidi Beirich,
Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
17
The Mandate for Leadership, page 9
18
An example in programmatic work is the Institute for Women’s Health –
Framework for Holistic Women’s Health.
19
The Mandate for Leadership, page 262 and Podcast, digital politics, Raising Alarm About
the Mandate for Leadership with Anne Christine Stop the Coup 2025, Jan 22, 2024.
20
Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights and The Mandate
21
The Mandate for Leadership (throughout) but specifically pages 260-265
22
President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order 13957, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted
Service,” October 21, 2020, in Federal Register, Vol. 85, No. 207 (October 26, 2020), pp.
67631–67635
32
23
The Mandate for Leadership, page 271,
24
Global Project Against Hate and Extremism – Project 2025, the road to authoritarianism
A Primer – Fact Sheet 2024
25
The Mandate for Leadership, page
26
The Mandate for Leadership, page 191, 265, 268, 269
27
The Mandate for Leadership, page 8
28
The Mandate for Leadership, page 62 and the White House Gender Policy Council
29
The Mandate for Leadership, page 258, 259
30
The Mandate for Leadership, page 258 (DEI) 584 (Sex Discrimination)
31
The Mandate for Leadership, throughout and page 451
32
The Mandate for Leadership, page 89, 187
33
The White House Statement December 11 2023
34
The Mandate for Leadership, page 192
35
Kane, Gillian IPAS Project 2025 is Already Here, In these times, April 2024 and
The Mandate for Leadership
36
Map from the Institute for Women’s Health
37
Protego: Operationalizing the Geneva Consensus, Ipas, 2024
38
The Institute for Women’s Health
39
Ibid
40
Kane, Gillian, IPAS Project 2025 is Already Here, In these times, April 2024
41
The Mandate page 265
42
2020 Open Democracy Interactive site exploring US Christian right dark money
43
Okereke, Caleb, “How US Evangelicals Helped Homophobia Flourish in Africa,
” Foreign Policy, March 2023
44
Mcshane, Julianne, Uganda cited Dobbs in an Anti-LGBTQ Crackdown. Americans should
worry too. 4th April 2024, Mother Jones.
45
Matsumoto, Rio, The Latest Must-Pass Bill Barreling Through Congress is an Attack
on Gender-Affirming Care, 16 November 2023, ACLU
46
OECD-DAC ODA statistics
47
OECD-DAC ODA statistics
48
KFF: The US Government and Global Health: 28 May, 2024
49
KFF: Donor Government Funding for Family Planning in 2022
50
Donors Delivering for SRHR Report 2024 (2022) DSW
51
Donors Delivering for SRHR Report 2024 (2022) DSW
52
KKF In 2022, Donor Governments Spent US$8.2 billion on Efforts to Fight HIV/AIDS Glo-
bally, July 2023
53
Schaaf, Marta et. al, Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance? Towards a framework for
assessing the health systems impact of the GGR, BMJ July 2019
33
54
Under the policies definition “abortion as a method of family planning includes abortions
for any reason other than when the pregnancy arose from rape or incest or if carrying the
pregnancy to term would endanger a woman’s life”. However, in practice, lack of understan-
ding of the policy or fear of falling foul of it meant the policy has been interpreted as a total
ban on abortion. The policy does not provide for exemptions to protect the health of a
woman or pregnant person or for foetal abnormalities. Foreign NGOs are prohibited from
providing, counselling, or referring for abortions in these circumstances while receiving U.S.
GHA. Moreover, expansions of the MCP meant that any fNGO subject to the Policy must
include the same restrictions on any of their sub-recipients of funding, even if those sub-
recipients are not in receipt of US funds AmfAR – Issues Brief November 2019, The
Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund
55
Ahmed, Zara, The Unprecedented Expansion of the Global Gag Ruel: Trampling Rights,
Health and Free Speech, Guttmacher Policy Review Vol 23 2020
56
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, November,
2019
57
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, November
2019, page 47
58
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, November
2019
59
The Kemp-Kasten Amendment was first applied in 1985 and states that no U.S. funds may
be made available to any organisation or program which, as determined by the president
of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive
abortion or involuntary sterilisation. Multiple sources including, KFF, Global Health Policy,
UNFPA Funding & Kemp-Kasten: An Explainer, 30 Sept 2022
60
The Mandate for Leadership, page 261, 190-192
61
Repealing the Helms Amendment completely is an important advocacy point for US NGOs
62
Key informant Interview, CRR
63
S. 137, Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act, 117th Congress, introduced January 28,
2021, (accessed January 20, 2023), and H.R. 534, Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act,
117th Congress, introduced January 28, 2021, (accessed January 20, 2023).
64
KFF, What the Election Could Mean for the Mexico City Policy and U.S. Foreign Aid
May 30th, 2024 https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/what-the-election-could-
mean-for-the-mexico-city-policy-and-u-s-foreign-aid/?utm_campaign=KFF-Global-Health-Po-
licy&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8VpUYzGSaJKStoK
65
There are other areas of expansion such as the extension to contracts, potential for
retroactive review under the section ‘righting the ship’ page 174 which are beyond the scope
of this analysis.
66
Interagency Steering Committee on Reproductive Health in Crisis, Minimum Intervention
Service Package
67
Ahmed, Zara, The Unprecedented Expansion of the Global Gag Rule: Trampling Rights,
Health and Free Speech Guttmacher Inst. Volume 23,2020
68
Schaaf, Marta, Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance’? Towards a framework for as-
sessing the health systems impact of the expanded Global Gag Rule BMJ Global Health,
13 July 2019
69
PAI and WaterAID How the Expanded Global Gag Rule Affects Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene, October 2019
70
amfAR The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund,
November 2019
71
The Mandate for Leadership, pages 190-193, page 261
72
CFR, Funding the United Nations, how much does the US pay?
Latest update 29 Feb 2024
73
Annual pledge (total three-year pledge 2023-25 is 6 billion).
74
https://donortracker.org/donor_profiles/united-states (24th June 2024)
75
https://donortracker.org/donor_profiles/united-states (24th June 2024)
34
76
UNFPA Key Informant Interview
77
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, 2019
78
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, 2019
79
Exact figures need to be received from the Global Fund.
80
amfAR, The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, 2019
81
The Mandate for Leadership, page 192, 260
82
SheDecides, IPPF etc.
83
Disengaging internationally from work to support the climate crisis is also featured in
Project 2025 but was beyond the scope of this report.
84
amfAR in 2019 The Expanded Mexico City Policy: Implications for the Global Fund, 2019
“In nominating prime recipients for Global Fund grants, CCMs should be cognizant of
the implications of choosing a prime recipient that is or may become restricted by the
Expanded Mexico City Policy and how that may affect sub-recipients that can be
partnered with to perform grant activities.”
85
Ibid
35
rfsu.se • 08-692 07 00 • info@rfsu.se
RFSU’s aim, since it was founded in 1933, has been to give people the
means to change their lives for the better.
RFSU is a nonprofit organisation independent of any political party or
religion. We are dedicated to promoting a well-informed, open-minded
attitude about sexuality and relationship issues. RFSU is founded on a
firm belief that sexuality and relationships are central to the individual
and to society. By informing and
educating people and shaping opinion, RFSU aims to break down prej-
udices, overcome ignorance and improve sexual health in
Sweden and abroad. RFSU views sexuality as a matter of individual
liberty and human rights, in which all of us have the freedom to be our-
selves, the freedom to choose and the freedom to enjoy.
			
When you purchase a product, become a member,
collaborate or support RFSU’s work, you are contributing
to our constant efforts to change people’s lives.
RFSU is a member organisation.
Do you want to become a member? Register at
www.rfsu.se/engagera-dig/stod-oss/bli-medlem-i-rfsu
www.rfsu.se/medlem


Side 1 | 1
Udenrigsudvalget
SRSR-Netværket
Til: Udvalgets medlemmer
Dato: 16. september 2024
Analyse af Project 2025 og amerikansk politik ift. ligestilling og SRSR
Kære medlemmer
Hermed omdeles en rapport fra svenske RFSU omkring Project 2025 og
mulige konsekvenser for amerikanske udenrigs- og udviklingspolitik i forhold
til ligestilling og seksuel og reproduktiv sundhed og rettigheder (SRSR). Rap-
porten fremhæver en række vidtrækkende mulige konsekvenser for ameri-
kansk linjeføring i forhold til abort, ligestilling og støtte til multilaterale SRSR-
indsatser, såfremt anbefalingerne føres ud i livet på bagkant af det kommen-
de præsidentvalg.
Med venlig hilsen
Niklas Borker Bjerre,
udvalgssekretær
Offentligt
SRSR Alm.del - Bilag 10,URU Alm.del - Bilag 260
Folketingets Tværpolitiske netværk for seksuel og reproduktiv sundhed og rettigheder 2023-24,Udenrigsudvalget 2023-24


Project 2025
An ultraconservative plan for expanding
extreme anti-gender laws and dismantle
the multilateral system
A summary of Malayah Harper's report “Project 2025: How the blueprint for the next
Republican administration may impact US foreign and development policy
on SRHR and gender equality”.
Commissioned by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU)
September 2024.
Executive summary
Offentligt
SRSR Alm.del - Bilag 10,URU Alm.del - Bilag 260
Folketingets Tværpolitiske netværk for seksuel og reproduktiv sundhed og rettigheder 2023-24,Udenrigsudvalget 2023-24
Background: RFSU’s study on Project 2025
Media attention in Europe is increasingly focused on the upcoming US elections in
November. This includes coverage of Project 2025, a far-right conservative and
Christian nationalist road map that aims to dramatically reshape the US federal
government. It is a product of The Heritage Foundation, an American think tank with
an advisory board of influential ultra-conservative and anti-rights individuals and
organisations.
While the impacts of Project 2025 domestically in the US have come under scrutiny,
far less attention has been given to its potential international impacts. The project
outlines a complete overhaul of foreign and development policy. The US is a strong
voice in the UN and the largest contributor to development assistance. The US is also
the largest contributor to global health. In turn, a large share of US global health
funding is channelled to initiatives and multilateral bodies that contribute to sexual
and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). To understand Project 2025's
implications for US and European ODA and foreign policy, RFSU commissioned an
analytical study. The final report is called Project 2025: How the blueprint for the
next Republican administration may impact US foreign and development policy on
SRHR and gender equality. The report zooms in on the devastating impact the
Project’s implementation would have on the multilateral system, global health,
gender equality, SRHR, and the rights of LGBTQ+ persons.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is divided into 4 “pillars”. The central element is “Pillar 1”, a 920-page
authoritarian policy roadmap called The Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative
Promise. It outlines plans to centralise power into the hands of the President, appoint
politically partisan courts and remove career civil servants in favour of political
appointees. The Mandate was drafted over two years and brought together 34
authors and over 420 contributors.
1
Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, saying he has “no
knowledge of the Project” and calling some elements “extreme.” However, these
denials have been questioned. CNN reports that at least 140 people who worked in
the Trump Administration contributed to the Project. According to the Guardian, 29
of the 36 speakers in the so called Presidential Academy training videos worked for
Donald Trump in some capacity.
Donald Trump and Project 2025
Project 2025 outlines how to:
Break down the multilateral order, including by defunding and potentially
withdrawing from the United Nations (UN)
Extend international anti-abortion policies and silence dissenting voices
through a massive expansion of the so-called Mexico City Policy (MCP).
Do a comprehensive restructuring of the US Agency for International
Development (USAID). At a minimum, USAID should return to the
agency’s 2019 pre-COVID budget level.
Remove all language on gender, abortion, reproductive health and rights
and anything inclusive of diverse gender identities from all materials and
programming of USAID.
Remove the 180 gender advisors across USAID.
What are the suggestions for US foreign policy and the UN
system?
2
In particular, Project 2025 proposes extensive rollbacks in US foreign and
development policies on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR),
LGBTQ+, equality, racial equity, climate, and environmental protection. The Project
stands out for its focus on anti-abortion messages. It outlines how to stop any access
to abortion information, comprehensive sexuality education and emergency
contraception. The global consequences extend far beyond removing access to
abortion and will significantly affect contraceptive access, maternal health and
gender equality programming.
The changes proposed by Project 2025 in the US relationships with the UN are so
substantial that they would have considerable impacts on all UN member states,
including Sweden and the EU. It suggests to fundamentally alter American
diplomacy by using its voice to push anti-gender, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+
agendas. UN organisations that do not comply risk being defunded. These are not
idle threats: under the last Trump administration, the UN Fund for Population and
Development (UNFPA) was defunded, the World Health Organisation (WHO) came
under substantial pressure, and the US withdrew from the Human Rights Council.
Project 2025 goes further than this.
The Project calls for a massive expansion of the Mexico City Policy (MCP), also
known as the Global Gag Rule (GGR). Since 1984, the MCP has been implemented
by each Republican administration and rescinded by each Democratic. Under the
original conditions of the MCP (which applied to Family Planning assistance only)
Foreign Non-Governmental Organisations that receive US funding has to agree not
to use the US funds or funds from other donors for performing, providing counselling,
referring, or advocating for safe abortion. Other partners (such as Swedish Sida)
cannot support these organisations in providing those services. ‘Gagging’ vast
numbers of civil society organisations in recipient countries limits the number of
partners on the ground, breaks down the infrastructure of local organisations and
weakens and silences civil society groups.
In 2017, President Trump reinstated and expanded the MCP, applying it to all health
assistance. Project 2025 goes further. MCP is proposed to be expanded to cover
ALL foreign development assistance. The name of the expanded policy is Protecting
Life in Foreign Assistance (PLFA).
Expansion of an extreme version of US anti-abortion
policies globally
3
All US foreign assistance: USD 66 billion (2023). Estimations show that
USD 51 billion goes to non-US Government prime recipients, the funding
most likely subject to the expanded MCP.
USD 30 billion annually to multilateral agencies. In the past, these
organisations, including the UNFPA, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB,
and Malaria (the Global Fund), and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunization (GAVI), have not had to certify compliance with the MCP.
USD 16 billion annually to humanitarian assistance, previously exempted
from the policy.
The Project 2025 expansion of the MCP would cover:
conclusions and recommendations
If fully implemented, the grave impact of Project 2025 on US ODA and foreign policy
is undeniable. It would negatively impact the lives and health of the poorest and
most vulnerable, particularly groups of women, girls and LGBTQ+ persons. Project
2025 should not be viewed as a short-term plan. Regardless of the outcome of the
elections, delivering on its core objectives will be central to groups of far-right and
Christian nationalists in the conservative movement.
RFSU encourages the Swedish and like-minded European governments, donors,
academia, the general public, and civil society to read about Project 2025,
understand what is at stake, and spread the word to others.
4
The PLFA would attempt to tie US bilateral government-to-government agreements,
possibly by having countries endorse the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD). The
declaration is a global anti-abortion manifesto that was developed in 2020 under the
first Trump administration.
The suggested measures would have severe and far-reaching effects beyond
substantially reducing essential service access.
Coordinate and develop a joint road map in preparation for a possible
implementation of Project 2025. There is an urgent need for a stronger
coordination and infrastructure for analytical work, information sharing, and
action around Project 2025. Elevate Project 2025 to a foreign policy issue
that impacts democracy, human rights and sovereignty.
Establish an emergency fund (or enhance an existing mechanism). This is
necessary to protect and grow all the programs, agencies and organisations
that are at risk of loosing US funding. Be prepared to fill the funding gaps,
including for humanitarian action.
Work closely with UN bodies and multilateral organisations such as the
UNFPA, the Global Fund, WHO, and Gavi, supporting them to prepare and
be vocal in defence of human rights and the impacts of implementing
Project 2025.
Work together with governments and other actors from the Global South.
Substantial support is needed for coordinated voices and actions from
governments and civil society in the Global South. Work hand in hand with
key allies and support like-minded governments to have a global voice on
human rights, gender equality and SRHR. Ensure that local voices are
empowered and at the forefront of shaping the laws, policies, and programs
that affect their communities.
By implementing these recommendations, European governments and civil
society will help proactively address the challenges posed by Project 2025 and
support human rights, dignity and equality for all.
rfsu.se • 08-692 07 00 • info@rfsu.se
RFSU’s recommendations to the Swedish and like-
minded governments:
5