Why US aid pause should wake Africa up 

EXTERNALITIES COME AS inevitable variables in international diplomatic relations. They need to be controlled, especially those at the receiving end. The response to them and such controls depend in part on individual territories, nations and regional blocs. While some are proactive, some are reactive. While some are preemptive, some are adaptive and some are used as mitigants. African countries have been particularly in a quandary with respect to externalities in various areas: economy, science, technology, food, education, wealth creation and sustainable livelihoods. Although so much needs to be corrected, the pervasive lack of will to do so has become a burden under which the African countries groan.

The problems weighing Africa down are not insurmountable. Rather, if various countries’ leaders would do the right thing, Africa should be giving out instead of depending on freebies known as foreign aid. For so long, Africa has been receiving aid from a variety of sources, including national government, religious groups, corporate entities, non-governmental organisations, development partners and — in recent times — from questionable sources such as terrorism financiers, albeit informally, to aligned dissident groups. Recent data had estimated the annual global aid to Africa as approximately $59.7 billion in 2023, representing roughly 26.8 percent of total global aid. Major aid donors to Africa are Canada, Japan, Germany, the US and the UK. Recently, the UK modified its foreign aid operations. That was a time when Africa ought to have started rethinking its aid dependence. But aid from the US has consistently flowed into Africa such that, in the past decade alone, the US has provided around $8 billion annually in aid to Africa, adjusted for inflation. In the fiscal year 2024, the US reportedly provided nearly $6.6 billion in humanitarian assistance to sub-Saharan Africa.

The aid donations in cash or in kind flowing mostly from the global North covers areas such as health intervention in forms of training, medical supplies and disease prevention, response to wars and conflicts, military training and hardware supplies, including ammunition, food, environmental services and social causes to support the vulnerable populace. However, the social causes, which started out in the form of social justice, equity and human rights have surreptitiously opened the door for promotion of perversions. Beginning with the seemingly innocuous mainstreaming of gender inclusion, it has metamorphosed into the promotion of LGBTQ rights which are considered alien to Africa. This is where Africa needs to draw a line of conditionality between aid giver and receiver. 

Africa has all it needs to produce enough food for its population and to have excess for export. But that is not happening yet. Rather, Africa has perennially depended on food importation to meet up with production shortfalls. In addition, the continent remains a net receiver of food aid, which comes in huge volumes in response to humanitarian crises resulting from wars and crop failures that are associated with pests, diseases and extreme weather events such as floods, fires and droughts. For the past decade, food aid to Africa has been in the range of 2 to 4 million metric tonnes per year, although the amounts vary depending on the needs of the countries and regions. In 2025, towards the end of January, the World Food Programme (WFP) pledged to provide $35 million food aid for hunger-stricken Malawians, from the World Bank, to help address the ongoing food shortage in the southern African country. According to a joint statement released last Friday of January, over a week ago, the aid will enable Malawi, sharing borders with Mozambique and Zambia, to receive about 48,000 metric tonnes of maize. The food aid will be distributed to hunger-stricken households. Despite Africa’s agricultural potential, it relies heavily on food imports, fueling concerns about food security. From recent reports, Africa imports around $50 billion worth of food annually. Estimates suggest this figure could rise to between $90 and $110 billion by 2025 if significant changes are not put in place to boost domestic food production. 

Food importation is growing in tandem with an increase in population. In 2022, food imports into Africa exceeded $103 billion, rising from close to $94 billion in the previous year. Importation of food on a large scale, raises food import bills and poses a strain on African economies, making them vulnerable to external price fluctuations. In addition to food challenges, Africa still remains bogged down with health challenges and depends largely on foreign aid to fight off some serious epidemics. 

One of such aids was the additional €20 million announced on October 2024 by Jutta Urpilainen, European Commissioner for International Partnerships. The EU official disclosed that the funding was for emergency response and supports preparedness towards the fight against Mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). Although it was described as part of the EU’s objective to support the strengthening of health systems in Africa, in coordination with the director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), it remains doubtful if the DR Congo would succeed alone without receiving external help. Another of such help involves the implementation of the joint Africa CDC-WHO Mpox Continental Preparation and Response Plan. Hitherto, 215,000 doses of Mpox vaccines donated by HERA to the Africa CDC to address the ongoing crisis across the African continent is different from the 365,000 doses of Mpox vaccine donated by Team Europe.

Many causes are associated with Africa’s chronic and seemingly intractable health challenges. Cultures, traditions, beliefs and deliberate ignorance have helped to perpetuate many epidemics in Africa. Here are some examples. Although the continent constitutes about 17 percent of the world’s population, it bears a disproportionate burden of the epidemic. As of 2023, around 25.6 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV, accounting for over two-thirds of the global cases. Eswatini, a tiny Southern African country with a 2023 population of 1.211 million, has the highest prevalence of HIV in Africa and the world. In that same 2023, almost 26 percent of the population in Eswatini lived with HIV. South Africa, the region’s biggest neighbour and economic hub, is not faring any better. With a population of 60.41 million in 2023, South Africa was the country with the highest number of people living with HIV in Africa, numbering around 7.7 million. Lesotho is also infamous with a high incidence comparable to South Africa.

In absolute numbers, four countries have a combined figure of nearly 16 million HIV patients. South Africa led the pack with 9.2 million, followed by Tanzania, with 2.55 million. Mozambique had 2.48 million; Nigeria too had 2.45 million. Considering the top 10 countries having people living with HIV in the world, South Africa has 18 percent. Nigeria places second with nine percent. India takes the third with six percent. Kenya has five percent. Mozambique has four percent, Uganda four percent. Tanzania contributes four percent but Zimbabwe’s percentage was not necessarily as high as the rest. Notice that, globally, seven out of eight leading countries in HIV cases are in Africa. This places the onus to effect changes on those in authority in various countries. Change must therefore come from within the continent of Africa if HIV/AIDS is to be totally eradicated. Ironically, however, affected countries still rely on donations to facilitate the management of cases. 

In June 2024, Afreximbank alone committed a $2 billion facility to the “Africa Health Security Investment Plan” to support the health product manufacturing ambition of the continent. Why should Africa wait on donations to take care of its critical needs? Excuses about pervasive insecurity as the basis for allowing foreign soldiers from advanced countries to operate freely in Africa are untenable. The enduring presence of foreign military bases in Africa has been more counterproductive as it continues to fragment and weaken African state institutions. In reality it prevents African unity and sovereignty, and tends to subordinate the aspirations of the continent for pan-African consolidation. Four countries that have been able to brave these odds are those in the Sahel who live through perennial bouts of threats and actual attacks from armed groups. Although it sounds unpopular to those fixated on the idea of democratic leadership, the Alliance of Sahel States formed recently by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger has security of its confederation as one of its cornerstones. In ensuring that such security is no longer left in the hands of foreigners, they have ended their dependence on France by asking the latter to close its military bases within their territories. Very recently, Chad has done the same by ending its military pact with France. 

The United States has twenty-nine known military facilities in fifteen countries in Africa. France has bases in ten countries. Of the many US bases on the African continent, it is debatable if any of them is there on pure altruism. The ideas sold to African countries are at variance with their agenda for having a foothold in Africa. Hitherto, the US has been a big player in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The bombing that took place under the pretext of the NATO, African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) in Libya has led to a chronic crisis in Libya. The country is yet to recover as it still struggles to resolve the divisions that led the country on the path of two separate governments. In the aftermath of that unfortunate war unleashed on Libya by NATO, the Sahel region has experienced a number of conflicts, driven mostly by the emergence of forms of insurgencies, militancy, piracy, and smuggling. It is now obvious that France and the United States intervened militarily across the Sahel, using the pretext of these conflicts, and inflamed by NATO’s war. France set up the G-5 Sahel, a military arrangement that included Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, in 2014, expanding or opening new military bases in Gao, Mali; N’Djamena, Chad; Niamey, Niger; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The United States, too, built an enormous drone base for drone strikes and aerial surveillance across the Sahel and the Sahara Desert in Agadez, Niger. No other country from outside the continent has as many military bases in Africa as France and the US.

Whether foreign aids or freebies, none comes without strings attached, visible or invisible. In fact, those things presumed to be free are costlier. In the case of health or military assistance, this holds true. But, what happens to the various countries’ national health and security budgets? In Nigeria, in particular, the defence budget is about the highest of all sectoral budgets annually for over a decade. But why has this not translated to a secured country, for instance? Rather than continuing to depend on foreign support for the people, African countries need to look inwards and find ways of solving their critical problems and meeting their critical needs. This way, they will not be unnecessarily jolted in case of donor fatigue from the external sources and they will be less susceptible to compromising their health and security status. Those promoters of aid dependency in Africa need to have a rethink. It is time to stop.

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