US President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to pause nearly all foreign aid, including the near-total dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is having ripple effects worldwide. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the policy is aimed to shift Washington’s attention away from political and cultural causes that are “divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad.”

The move is already having dire consequences for many women-led and gender-based NGOs and civil society groups in the...