US to set up 12 regional disaster response hubs under new State Dept office

The U.S. Department of State said it is creating a new Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response to coordinate disaster and emergency humanitarian aid, building on a restructuring of U.S. foreign assistance announced in the wake of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s dismantling.

The department said the bureau will be based in Washington and will include about 200 staffers. It said the bureau will operate under a larger office that oversees foreign assistance functions and will handle only disaster and emergency aid.

Under the State Department plan, the bureau’s work will be carried out on the ground through 12 regional hubs. Those hubs are intended to coordinate disaster and emergency humanitarian response activities from locations outside Washington.

The department said the regional hubs will be located in Miami; Bogota, Colombia; Guatemala City; Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic; Kyiv in Ukraine; Amman in Jordan; Addis Ababa in Ethiopia; Nairobi in Kenya; Dakar in Senegal; Bangkok; Dhaka in Bangladesh; and Manila in the Philippines.

The announcement highlights how the Trump administration has changed the structure of U.S. aid operations since USAID was closed, a move that aid and relief organizations have criticized. The new bureau is described as the part of the foreign assistance apparatus focused specifically on disaster and emergency humanitarian assistance, rather than longer-term programs.

The department said late last year that it announced a $2 billion contribution to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, through which assistance would be funneled to groups in specific countries in need. The State Department said the regional-hub model is designed to execute disaster and emergency response in different parts of the world.

The department’s plan also reflects broader cuts in foreign aid spending under the administration, including reductions for programs that dealt with climate change and social-justice issues, according to the Associated Press account of the announcement.