What USAID's Dismantling Looks Like on the Ground in Africa
Locals in Malawi and Kenya who worked with the agency face stalled development, cancelled programming, and shortages of lifesaving supplies: ‘I think we will forget America is even there.’
Holly Berkley Fletcher
Feb 14, 2025
JOHN IS OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER the dark days when AIDS ravaged his country and his family. Living in Malawi, he has seen up close the difference made by the lifesaving work of PEPFAR, which is administered in large part through the U.S. Agency for International Development. For him, the American government has been a steady, sustaining presence for many years through a multiplicity of programs under the umbrella of USAID. He had believed it was a relationship of mutual benefit to Malawi and America. Now, in the wake of the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID, he wonders what will happen to his country. He worries the deadly past might revisit. “We are so scared we might see people dying like that again,” he told me on the phone this week.
John’s work brings him into contact with many USAID employees and projects in Malawi.1 In particular, he knows that USAID brings badly needed development and services to rural areas, which in Malawi, as in many other African countries, are chronically underserved by their governments. Wealth, power, and influence tend to be concentrated in cities. Specifically, he describes to me the importance of USAID educational programming for rural children. The agency has built rural schools with science labs and libraries, both rare in those settings. John thinks support for rural girls’ education is especially vital in a country where many families don’t prioritize educating their daughters. He says USAID programming has ensured girls don’t miss school during their periods because they lack feminine products, a common problem for girls in Africa. “USAID had focused on the girl child,” John says. “They focused on so many problems facing girls in the rural areas.”
But then, the cuts came. “The students in the villages may not know what is happening, but they are affected.” Over the last few weeks, John has witnessed the sheer chaos of USAID’s dismantling in one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries. The U.S. government provided $350 million in aid across multiple sectors last year, equivalent to 13 percent of Malawi’s national budget. Its permanent cessation would be not only a humanitarian catastrophe but an economic one. John’s own employment and that of many Malawians he knows is in danger. He tells me people report to work each day not knowing if they still have a job. “Everyone looks sad because no one knows what will happen,” he says. “We may pretend we are okay, but we are not okay.”
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly given as the rationale for gutting USAID the prevention of waste, fraud, and abuse. But John expects Malawi will see—is already seeing—more waste and corruption. He mentions two educational projects that have stopped midstream, leaving half-finished buildings standing idle, construction materials unused, and boxes of books and computer tablets unattended. He fears that without USAID administration, these supplies will vanish into the ether of the corruption that is all too common in Africa to the benefit of the politically well connected. If they haven’t already. “Where is the cement [and other supplies]? Still there? Stolen? Who knows?” he said.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/usaid-dismantling-consequences-malawi-kenya-aids-pepfar
