Why Africa’s anti-aid brigade isn’t smiling

Ethiopia has been the largest recipient of Dutch aid in Africa. Other major beneficiaries include nations such as Ghana, Mozambique, and Uganda. These countries, along with Kenya and Tanzania, have also ranked among the top recipients of American aid and will feel the greatest impact now that Trump has effectively shuttered the US aid agency, USAID, and imposed a funding freeze.

In the fiscal year 2024, USAID disbursed approximately $12 billion in assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, with top recipients like Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Africa each receiving hundreds of millions annually. For instance, South Africa alone was allocated nearly $440 million in 2023, including over $270 million for HIV/Aids programmes. Many healthcare initiatives, school feeding schemes, farmer support, human rights efforts, attempts to make African police forces more “civilised,” and famine detection systems relied heavily on USAID funding.

In Nairobi, the abrupt halt of USAID operations has proven so disruptive—even for American staff—that there’s talk of it causing IDPs: not internally displaced persons, but internally displaced pets. Several staff members had to depart suddenly, struggling to find new homes for their many pets or arrange to fly them back home.

Now, speculation is rife that the UK might follow the Dutch example. With Trump abandoning Ukraine (and, by extension, Europe), Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has announced plans to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), up from around 2.3 per cent. In 2022, the UK provided £1.241 billion ($1.576 billion) in bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Africa, according to government figures—a drop of £486 million (28.1 percent) from 2021’s £1.727 billion. This decline reflects a broader shift that is likely to accelerate, with other European countries expected to follow suit.

The repercussions will be immense. Hundreds of millions—possibly billions—of dollars that propped up national exchange rates, fuelled the upmarket real estate sector and formed a substantial portion of social sector and non-governmental funding will vanish. Rents in cities like Nairobi will likely plummet, which may benefit tenants but could drive many property owners into financial ruin.

One group that might be expected to celebrate is Africa’s anti-aid brigade. These critics decry donor money as “enslaving” African states, subsidising dictatorships, stripping citizens of agency, and turning many African nations into aid-dependent “zombie states” corrupted by “free money.”

They argue that the end of aid could usher in a new era of self-reliant, world-beating African societies driven by their own resources—and perhaps even more democratic governments, forced to be accountable to taxpayers who will now foot the bill.

Yet even they seem stunned by the ruthlessness of Trump’s aid cuts. Part of the criticism of aid in Africa has been spiteful and polemical rather than programmatic—like the endless bickering of a noisy couple next door, intended not to resolve anything but to score points in a domestic power struggle.

Similarly, many aid critics never truly expected donors to follow Trump’s lead. Some would have preferred to chase donors out with sticks, watching them flee in humiliation with their money in tow.

For decades, these critics—some of whom have penned books, journal articles, and newspaper columns railing against aid, imperialism, and neo-colonialism—have campaigned against meddling donors. They would have relished the chance to orchestrate a dramatic defeat of the aid industry on their own terms, at a time and place of their choosing, bearing the scars of battle as proof of their heroic fight.

Instead, it must feel akin to the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896. Often cited as the shortest war in history, this clash between the United Kingdom and the Sultanate of Zanzibar lasted 38 minutes on August 27, 1896.

Following the death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini, his successor, Khalid bin Barghash, seized power against British wishes. The British issued an ultimatum, and when it was ignored, they bombarded the palace with naval gunfire. Khalid fled, and his forces surrendered almost instantly—the fight over before it had truly begun. The swift capitulation surprised even the British, who had anticipated greater resistance.

Trump didn’t exactly flee like Khalid. He simply picked up his ball and walked off the pitch. In doing so, he has denied the anti-aid and anti-imperialist contingents the chance to claim a famous victory. This is not how they imagined the fight would end.

The author is a journalist, writer and curator of the Wall of Great Africans. X: @cobbo3