The Flipside of USAID’s Humanitarian Supports to Africa

Tuesday, February 11, 2025 6:55 am

Donald Trump

Gboyega Bello

Weeks, even months or years before the electoral success that ushered in Mr Donald Trump for a second term of office, few people were left in doubt that his new tenure would be bumpy. His antecedents portend the imminent reality. He was slammed with scores of court cases. He became a felon. And only by a whisker, he cheated death, not once, not twice, the exact figures known only to the security agents. And he’d harboured some bile too and sworn to deal with his detractors. But if there was any consensus among observers that his second term would be tremulous, even Nostradamus would hasten to concede seeing the cyclonic form it is presently taking.

Two weeks into President Trump’s assumption of office, a barrage of executive orders bore his imprimatur. As at last count, over a score of his executive orders levitated and whereupon they perched, awe, concussion and consternation suffused the air. They’d hit hard on his perceived personal enemies. They’d battered his friends. But just as they lashed at individuals, nations hadn’t been spared either. His whim, perhaps, is the only thing that goads him on. And as the trend goes, threnodies, in disparate unfathomable languages and pitches, echo across the globe, from China, Mexico to Canada. And Iran. And Gaza. Every inch of the globe now feels the grips of the new sheriff in town. In the U.S., labour agitations loom large. Many government agencies’ employees fear for their job. The new man in the Oval Office is reimagining things. He is on an unchartered path since the tempestuous President Richard Nixon’s era, with much gusto to boot, shaking the very foundation of America. Many of his countrymen look askance. They are at a loss, contemplating if what is unraveling before their very eyes is what they had bargained for, whether the humbling reality is the electoral choice they’d made.

As might be expected, Africa isn’t spared from Mr Trump’s sting! The 47th President of the United States of America’s directive to freeze all his country’s aids for 90days has handed citizens of African countries and their various governments the short end of the stick. The aids, bailouts, if you like, from United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) which fate now hangs in the balance had in the past offered reprieves to the repressed people of the African Continent. They now wonder if the end is nigh to the supply and provision of medicines and other humanitarian assistance from USAID.

Yet, this singular directive that aimed at stripping needy ordinary Africans and their governments of provisions long taken for granted, that may pull the rug from under their feet, may well be a blessing to the Continent and its people. Long term, should Mr. Trump continue to tighten the finances of USAID, African leaders and their governments would have no option than to fasten their belt and work a little harder for their people. Mr Trump’s new stand on USAID finances could only nudge them to prioritising their citizens’ needs over and above those of the privileged few on the continent. For in the absence of the reliefs offered by the likes of USAID, their oppressed citizens could begin to ask questions, could begin to insist on good governance and transparent election processes to better their lots. In the absence of the drips, the led, the emaciated children of Africa, may as well rise from their somnolence to demand for effective governance to clear their political space of civil strifes that have kept them fettered, that have deprived them of their dignity and humanness. The poor citizens of African countries need food on their table if not cars in their garage like anyone else in the world, which must come from their governments not from foreign aid agencies.

USAID has a lofty goal: working towards reducing global poverty, strengthening democratic governance, and achieving a prosperous world. In reality, however, I dare say that it is the U.S and its citizens, not Africans, not even other receivers of the agency’s largesse, that benefit the most from its programmes. And that is why the curtailment on its funding has baffled and riled many a rarified mind in the U.S. That perhaps explains why the disenchantment over the curtailment of funding to USAID is loudest over there.

For a take, USAID gestures foster America’s soft power and boost its image, much of which has an unedifying past and a present no less ignoble. Image is priceless. America purchases it on a platter of gold! With USAID funds! Fundings which are largely ploughed back to the U.S. system in forms of contracts awarded to companies in that country on one hand, and as salaries to thousands of its workers over there on anther hand.

Africans and others poor people of world are mere lousy beneficiaries of the multi-billion-dollar contracts awarded yearly by USAID. While it lasted, the agency provided thousands, if not millions of direct and indirect jobs for Americans in their country and outside it. It kept production lines of its industries in the U.S. roaring. Africans and other beneficiaries of USAID programmes merely received crumbs from the master’s table. Otherwise, why should resentments against the State Department’s directive, which among others, has furloughed no fewer than 60 USAID career officers and over 600 institutional support contractors be loudest in the U.S. and not in Africa and other places else that the assistances are targeted?

For a realiasation, consider this fact about the big budget USAID. In the fiscal year 2023, it disbursed US$72billion of assistance worldwide, 84.4% of which contractors are American companies, 4.3% United Kingdom based ones, with South African holding on to 3.7% of USAID contracts during the year under reference. Lucky Kenyan and Afghanistan’s going concerns undertook minuscule 2.9% and 2.8% of the contracts respectively under USAID, according to DevelopmentAid’s data base on its past awards.

In fairness to USAID which was established 61 years ago, it has its eyes on stimulating the economy of each of the countries where a specific aid support is delivered. A least it states this as its cardinal objective, even when its words are not synchronous with its actions. It has the goal to ensure that local contractors in respective country where supports are targeted can execute 25% of supplies meant for it. At least that is what it has on paper. As a matter of fact, it set a target date of 2025, this year, the year of our Lord, to achieve the feat. But as at 2023, USAID achieved only but 3.2% local content input! The seriousness attached to empowering beneficiary in-country companies by USAID thus flies in the face. It betrays the efficiency for which the north American country is known.

It is pertinent to have a synopsis of six companies that undertake contracts execution on behalf of USAID’s worldwide activities. Their sphere of interests covers consultancy services (65%), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) activities, (16.8%) and supplier services (6.7%).

Chemonics International – An international development consulting firm based in Washington DC, which according to data put together by DevelopmentAid, won 95% of all its awards over the years at the behest of UDSAID. Chemonics International, USAID’s topmost contractor, garnered 205 awards valued at USD560.4million in 2021 from the agency.

DAI Global – Based in Maryland, U.S., this private development entity that focuses on providing solutions to issues that impede social economic development wreaked by inefficient governance in poor countries, has USAID as its stoutest patron which historical contract awards to the company run to 80%. It remains USAID’s second largest contractor, which in 2021 coasted home 431 contract awards worthed US$161.4million.

Deloitte – Headquartered in London, its share of USAID’s pie in 2021 was 122 awards with a value tag of US$133.8million. Deloitte, the third largest contractor to USAID, specializes in audit and assurance, consulting, risk and financial advisory services.

ABT Associates – It has its headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, United States of America, and provides consulting/research services on health, social environmental policy and international development. Historical data on its past awards by Development Aid state that 61% of its jobs came from USAID. This fourth largest USAID contractor had, in 2021, 132 contracts which carried monetary value of US$38.7million.

Research Triangle Institute – Headquartered in North Carolina, U.S, and described as an independent, non-profit institute, it offers research development and technical services to clients. About 67% of all past projects awarded to Research Triangle Institute came from USAID. Holding the position as the fifth largest consultant to USAID in 2021, it executed 179 contract awards on behalf of the organisation with the value of US$33.2million.

Tera Tech – Provides consultancy services in engineering, programme development, construction management and technical services. Its data base of past contract awards compiled by DevelopmentAid show that about 43% of all its awards originated from USAID. In 2021, it received 177 contract wards that worthed US$31.7million from USAID. It’s the sixth largest contractor to USAID and it’s based in no other place than the United States of America, specifically in Pasadena, California.

As dusk set in last Friday 7th February, 2025, uproarious rumbles over the U.S. State Department’s directive to curtail the activities of USAID were at fever pitch, spawning in its wakes the possibility of constitutional impasse as well as labour disruption in the U.S. Already the largest U.S. government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers have approached a court to scuttle the Trump administration’s poise to disband USAID. The unions were already energized, on the move and high. Before close of work hours Friday, a U.S. judge had temporarily put on hold the Trump administration’s move to furlough 2,200 USAID employees.

There is little doubt about it, Africans did benefit from USAID largesse while it lasted, but there is no gainsaying that it is the U.S. itself that is the primary beneficiary of the agency. Curtailing its activities would hurt America much more than any other entities. With the curtailment of the activities of USAID, the U.S. is about to trade off its soft power. China would be too glad to occupy the hole it would leave in the hearts of beneficiaries of USAID programmes that have been provided over the years. The implications of that shouldn’t be lost on the U.S. For the Africans, the unfolding scenarios might be a blessing. It could get them unfettered, earning them the freedom to chart a course for their lives.

The fact remains that those who really benefit the most from USAID know themselves and have begun to shed tears. They have threatened to undertake protest marches and have got a judge right on their side. They are Americans, living in America and other places else. The Africans who pick the crumbs from USAID dining table need a reset, a refocus of their place in the world. They need to reimagine their future. Time is nigh for Africa to break free from USAID’s generosity, however well intentioned. In effect, what they would lose would only be the chains with which they have been manacled. Aids benefit the donor more than the données.

May Mr Trump succeed to set Africa free from being a beggarly Continent. “… [T]here is darkness in light, and light in darkness. … A good man has to be blind before he can see.” (God bless Ben Okri).