The current US administration froze funding for all USAID programs, and is likely to discontinue most of them. This already caused huge disruptions even in the programs that may be continued.

This presents a huge opportunity for the European Union.
The HIV prevention program PEPFAR alone prevents around a million people a year from dying from HIV/AIDS [1], while spending only 6,5 billion USD. We know this because USAID programs are well documented and studied.

Very rarely in foreign aid does an opportunity present itself where we know this well what our money is going to achieve.

The EU should look at the data for each defunded or threatened USAID program and offer funding all of them that exceed the current average level of effectiveness of EU aid programs.

Humanitarian reasons should be enough on their own. Still, this investment would also greatly increase European soft power and diplomatic good will in the recipient countries. In many cases this was a large motivation for the US to create these programs in the first place.

And lastly, those worried about immigration should also jump at this opportunity: Decreasing the burden of disease has time and again been shown to improve GDP and living standards especially in countries with young populations [2] which directly reduce incentives to leave.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/in-2023-pepfar-provided-life-saving-therapy-against-hiv-to-205-million-people
[2]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e30119