Hosted by Kwangu Liwewe
Featuring James Shikwati and Erin Brown
Produced by Finbar Anderson
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Amid all the noise surrounding the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the United States’ aid program, USAID, New Lines’ North Africa editor Erin Brown wonders if the real-world impact of those cuts is being forgotten. People’s immediate needs “are getting put in the proverbial wood chipper,” she tells Kwangu Liwewe on this week’s episode of Global Insights on The Lede, which focuses on how aid cuts will affect the African continent. “It’s the kind of thing where one day to the next you have people who actually need that aid to survive,” Brown says.
Aside from the massive impact the cuts will have on aid receivers, Brown points out that the cuts will also hit local staff hard, who could well lose their livelihoods. “There are so many extremely talented, very dedicated people from the host countries who are working at these organizations,” she says. “Not just because it’s a great job to have, but because a lot of them are really motivated to make their own country a better place.”
“One day to the next you have people who actually need that aid to survive.”
Brown highlights that the United States’ geopolitical rivals will be watching closely. “One of the biggest problems with the U.S. pulling out is that it leaves open a gaping hole, and there are two major players that want to fill that, and that’s China and Russia.”
While acknowledging the problematic structures that have been created by aid, Brown is skeptical that cutting off American aid completely will have positive effects for growing strong and independent local economies. “A lot of governments are very realistic, and they see that there are other partners who are willing to come in and finance things, and if they don’t have to go through the painful transitions, economic reforms, cutting public debt, all these sorts of things that are truly painful for a country to go through and that are terrible for a leader’s reelection prospects, then of course they’re going to turn to the UAE, they’re going to turn to China, they’re going to turn to Russia.”
Economist James Shikwati is more optimistic, however, about the U.S. giving up its dominance in the aid sector. “It will give Africa breathing space,” he says. “The stranglehold that Africa has had … it’s made to believe the narrative that it’s poor when it’s rich.”
Shikwati believes that the increasing influence of other powers within Africa made the Trump administration question the value for money it was getting from aid programs. “Multipolarity is what is making the U.S. stop this fund,” Shikwati says. “The question they’re asking themselves is, ‘Why are other emerging economies becoming more influential in Africa without spending as much as the Americans are spending. So the issue here is not that [Africa] cannot stand on its own two feet, it’s now about geopolitical competition within the African space.”
The cuts, says Shikwati, are “a wake up call, not only to African leaders, but to the entire African community, to rethink reliance on donor funding, to rethink reliance on external expertise and look inward to see how best they can grow inward potential in order to be able to manage the challenges that face the continent.”