USAID and Africa | Power Line

The Trump administration is putting USAID out of business, and Africans are foreseeing the consequences. But possibly not in the way you would imagine. The Telegraph headlines: “‘We should have been hammered a long time ago’: African countries thank Trump for aid wake-up call.”

Just as Europe has realised it must stand on its own and pay up to defend itself without American muscle, African countries are realising they cannot rely on US generosity to provide health care to their people.

Steep aid cuts from some of the world’s biggest donors, particularly America, are blowing holes in African health budgets as Washington, London, Paris and others slash their assistance spending.

Interesting. It’s not just us.

The response from many African leaders has been the same as the response from jilted European Nato leaders: This is a wake up call. We must step up to stand on our own and it might even be an opportunity.
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“[African nations] must stand on their own,” South Africa’s health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, told the Telegraph on the sidelines of the G20 health summit in Durban.

“This message is to say please stand on your own, because no country can depend forever on another country. It’s a wake up call.

“I personally do not think it is humanly possible for a country to feed others for life. I think foreign aid was there to bridge the country over a particular period, I do not think it was meant to be permanent in any way.”

That is a strong dose of common sense. Observers, including liberal ones, have been saying for a while that foreign aid has likely retarded African development as much as, or more than, it has advanced it.

More common sense from African leaders:

Similar sentiments have been voiced in other African capitals.

“I want to thank Mr Trump actually, I think he’s slapped us not on one cheek but on both cheeks, we should have been hammered a long time ago,” Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said. His country was receiving £460m ($600m) in aid a year from the US.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, has used the crisis to repeat his criticism of how aid undermines sovereignty.

“Whoever gives you aid controls your life,” he said earlier this month.

Meanwhile Nigeria has said it refuses to beg.

“We are a capable country and we are determined to own up to that responsibility. If others step in and support us, we appreciate it but we are not begging,” said Nigeria’s health and social welfare minister, Muhammad Ali Pate.

When African governments step up, waste and inefficiency are likely to be reduced:

Indeed optimists say this could be a chance to get rid of some of the worst inefficiencies and distortions of the aid system. Tangled aid architecture is often accused of inflating salaries and costs, being too centralised and unwieldy, and maybe not even delivering what recipient countries want.

There is a suspicion that some aid programmes are accepted, not because they are a domestic priority, but simply because they are being given away. When countries pay themselves, priorities could change.

Some, of course, are expressing concern over the apparent drying up of foreign aid. But that concern may prove premature. USAID is being more or less dissolved as an entity, but after the trans operas and trans comic books have been weeded out, its positive functions will be taken over by its parent organization, the State Department. I assume that aid to Africa will continue under new management, if perhaps on a reduced basis.

But these sensible reactions from African leaders make me think that ongoing aid should be sunsetted and phased out. The Telegraph gives the last word to a deputy director general in South Africa’s health department:

Prof Crisp said: “The biggest challenge was not whether funding would be reduced, it was the rapidity of the reduction, that was the problem.

“The challenge for every country I have spoken to was: ‘We needed warning’.”

Now, the warning has been given.