How Damaging Will the US Aid Pause Be?

By Gregory Simpkins

Seeing the photos and video of erstwhile colleagues given only 15 minutes to clear out the desks and offices they left behind when the US Agency for International Development (USAID) went remote at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic saddened me greatly.

When I retired from the agency four years ago, I had more time to clear out my things and was leaving voluntarily.

There are numerous reports of misdirected and misspent aid funds, but the people seen carrying their belongings out of the former USAID headquarters likely were not responsible for that in any significant way or at all. During the three decades my professional activities either were funded by USAID, or I monitored the agency for Congress or worked for the agency, I and colleagues with whom I worked spent our time trying to meet the needs of people worldwide who had problems involving health, human rights, education, economic development and democracy.

We had no ulterior motives, and at least in my case, no one told me to do anything for which I would someday be ashamed.

However, much sadder is the impact this will have on those who have depended on American assistance to meet their needs. There have been criticisms that African governments should cater to their own citizens’ needs, which is true, but an abrupt aid cutoff like we are experiencing does not provide enough lead time to avoid harm to those who need help, and in the case of HIV-AIDS, for example, delay in providing life-saving medicines means that by the time such treatment is resumed (if it is), the usual medicine won’t work because the disease has mutated.

Participating in Congressional and staff visits to Africa over the years, I have witnessed first-hand how lives have been saved. Viral loads that sentenced victims to a limited future turned around and enabled recipients of treatment to survive and even thrive.

Why wasn’t this considered when decisions were being made to halt US aid – even for a relatively short term?

The aid monitoring organization Devex estimates that at least 10,000 USAID and Department of State grants have been terminated, although the agency still owes partners at least US$1.5 billion across 2,000 outstanding funding requests.

Will the Aid Freeze Have Long-term Impacts?

The Better World Campaign, launched in 1999 with support from entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner as part of his historic US$1 billion gift to advance global peace, security, and health through the United Nations, works to strengthen the partnership between the U.S. and the UN. The Campaign lists various impacts from the US aid freeze.

• The UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), a lifeline for distributing humanitarian aid in hard to reach places or in the face of conflict, was threatened with suspending its operations by the end of February in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Syria, Haiti, Central African Republic (CAR), Yemen, Cameroon, Mauritania and Madagascar. If UNHAS discontinued its operations in Haiti, the UN would have to cease all programs in-country.
• The U.S. is a key partner of Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which helps vaccinate hundreds of millions of children against polio in more than 40 countries every year. The U.S. provides over one-quarter of its annual budget. During the 90–day work freeze alone, as many as 110 million children due to receive polio vaccines may now go unprotected.
• U.S. foreign assistance funds entry and exit screenings at the airport in Uganda and at two border crossings, where World Health Organization (WHO) officials are battling an outbreak of the Sudan Virus, a highly contagious variation of the hemorrhagic disease Ebola.
• In Myanmar, where malaria cases increased tenfold over four years, the delivery of malaria tests and drugs have stopped.
• The International Organization for Migration is ending its assistance through its fund of last resort for human trafficking victims worldwide.

The aid monitoring organization Devex estimates that at least 10,000 USAID and Department of State grants have been terminated, although the agency still owes partners at least US$1.5 billion across 2,000 outstanding funding requests. As I have written in earlier blogs on this matter, not only are the recipients of aid disadvantaged, but aid providing contractors have staff that have to be unsure right now how to respond as this matter as it is taken up by various US courts.

Do the staff return home? Do they hang on hoping for quick approval to complete their missions?

And what about contracts for space and services in the various countries? Not only does this incur legal liability that convey costs, but what about the reputational damage?

The United States’ word has been considered rock-solid on contracts and agreements of this sort for so very long. Will partners be willing to take a chance on America’s word on contracts after this?

Based on information I have received recently, the Trump administration has not only closed down USAID, but also its programs: Prosper Africa (which was created under the first Trump term), Power Africa and Feed the Future. I was honored to have been even a small part of the effort that successfully created those programs.

Now the plan reportedly is to merge them into the Department of State (State Department). That would be disastrous enough to allow a department tasked with diplomacy to manage programs it has little experience in operating, but there is concern that the need to please host countries will skew decision on programs contrary to the goals of those programs.

When the first Trump administration was considering whether to suspend the DR Congo from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) several years ago due to poor treatment of American companies operating in the country, USAID called on the State Department to send a diplomatic note to that government warning of the suspension if reforms weren’t made.

The State Department failed to take that action and recommended maintaining the DR Congo on the AGOA recipient list anyway because it wanted to support the new president at that time – Felix Tshisekedi. Of course, the problems his predecessor caused were not on him, but the warning gave him time to try to correct the problems noted and provided him leverage to insist on changes.

Without that warning and the prospect of losing AGOA benefits, making reforms that would cost some important people money did not happen.

Moreover, word is that the plan currently calls for far fewer State Department personnel to manage large programs. For example, the East African Trade Hub covers Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The Hub was informed of the expectation of as few as one staff person to manage it. Despite admittedly robust but uneven efforts, millions of people remain left behind in poverty in that region.

Women, youth, smallholder farmers, and the poor are not fully represented in policy making or implementation nor integrated into the wider economic community, according to program manager DAI. Again, what are contractors expected to do during the freeze, and what about experienced USAID staff now on forced leave?

Will they return or will they scatter for opportunities in the meantime, leaving State to search for people they hope can successful fill what are vital jobs?

Fortunately, there are fewer African elections this year than last year, but electoral assistance has been provided since the early 1990s and facilitated the wave of democracy that swept across Africa in the late 20th century. Even with US and other Western aid, there has been backsliding on democratic principles in recent years.

Will other Western countries step up to replace frozen or ended US aid? Surely China and Russia won’t.

They use the excuse of not wanting to interfere in African internal affairs, but in reality, they have no discernable interest in uplifting the rights of African citizens.

There are others also hurt by this aid freeze who have yet to rise up fully: agricultural producers for export and domestic vendors of services for aid program. Unlike producers and vendors in Africa, the domestic providers are constituents of Members of Congress.

There is growing discontent over the impact of the aid freeze on Americans not on the ground in Africa. How long before their complaints move Congress to push for a quicker end to the aid freeze before it more negatively impacts the US. economy?

The complaints of Congresspeople around the Washington area, where numerous aid officials and vendors live, may be ignored today, but corn, wheat and other agricultural producers in the Midwest will be heard and not too long from now.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.