What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts?

As the United States Agency for International Development was being dismantled in early February, aid workers and officials in Washington and around the world set out to salvage what they could.

In the months since, there has been a widespread and under-the-radar effort to retain and restore some of the agency’s most critical work — including some projects favored by those who had the administration’s ear, a New York Times investigation shows.

Former President George W. Bush, who created the H.I.V./AIDS prevention program known as PEPFAR, called Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Leadership at the World Food Program called senators and ambassadors, and they said that millions of hungry people would die. Aid workers and foreign officials found programs that could be said to align with…