The West retreat from foreign aid

By Anka MumuniOn January 20 2025, the President Donald Trump administration issued an executive order imposing a 90-day freeze on all development assistance. By the end of the day on February 1st, the website of the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, which manages most of the roughly $60 billion US aid budget, was offline. And Trump told European nations that they needed to boost their defence spending considerably.

The United States is a foundational funder of key international agencies – providing $2 billion of the United Nations Refugee Agency, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, (UNHCR’s) $4.8 billion of donor funding in 2024. The Center for Global Development finds the US represented a fifth of all foreign assistance to eight poor countries, mainly for basic healthcare and emergency assistance.



Critical Western security partners, like Jordan, depend on USAID to support essential services and for refugees. googletag.cmd.

push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1718806029429-0'); }); A few weeks after the US freeze of foreign aid, the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced that the UK would fund increased spending on defense by cutting its aid budget from roughly 0.5 percent of gross national income to 0.

3 per cent. The UK aid cut was one in a series made since 2020 and the country’s aid budget is reportedly now at its lowest for decades, with funding for long – standing recipients and humanitarian agencies especially hit. The relationship between the UK and USAID lies in their shared history of foreign aid programs, which fueled their alignment on global development goals, and their collaboration in addressing international challenges.

Both countries have historically been key players in global development, often working together or in parallel. The UK reportedly received a loan of over $3.75 billion ($36 billion in 2019 terms) from the United States in 1947 that was the largest ever single-year financial transfer (in inflation – adjusted terms) that the US has ever made.

That support topped all other US Government foreign assistance for decades, and it took nearly sixty years to pay it off by the UK. Even though the US was facing domestic challenges at the time, it was still able to invest substantially in an international partner that went on to become arguably its closest ally. As Washingtondebates the future of USAID amid reports that it may be put under the control of the State Department, analysts say the UK could offer lessons for the US on merging diplomacy and aid.

$(document).ready(function(){(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).

push({})}); In 2020, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson merged the Department for International Development (DFID), which oversaw the UK’s aid programs, with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). ‘’This will unite our aid with our diplomacy and bring them together in our international affairs,’’ Johnson told lawmakers in June 2020.Now the US and Britain are discussing the integration of foreign aid with diplomacy.

Trump’s proposal to transfer USAID to the State Department echoes the UK’s decision in 2020. This reflects a general tendency to align aid with foreign policy goals, but it risks prioritizing strategic interests over development goals.Observers say ‘’as key participants in various international programs and owners of themost extensive network of Non – Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Non Profit Organizations (NPOs), the US and the UK would now have the opportunity to strengthen their cooperation to have greater impact on developing countries, advancing their interests through programs such as climate change, migration and global health crises’’.

“Their historical ties and overlapping interests allow them to exert enormous influence on African nations, undermining the sovereignty of the entire African continent”, they added.With the Trump administration cutting off billions of US taxpayer funding for USAID international slush fund, former slush NGOs are now begging woke European nations and the UK, known for their heightened awareness of social inequalities and injustice, for money to continue their operations, according to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orban.The Prime Minister raised the alarm recently saying: “warning! Our fears have come true: the globalist – liberal-Soros NGO network is fleeing to Brussels, after President Trump dealt a huge blow to their activities in the US,” Orban wrote in a Tuesday post to X.

‘’Now 63 of them are asking Brussels and London for money, under the guise of various human rights projects. Not going to happen! We will not let them find safe haven in Europe!’’ Soros NGO network was founded by American business magnet, George Soros, and funded through his Open Society Foundations. One beneficiary of USAID is Nicaragua, a country with one of the lowest incomes per head in Latin America.

Between 2014 and 2021, USAID spent US$ 315,009,297 on projects there. But most of this money was reportedly spent trying to undermine Nicaragua’s Sandinista government through the2018 coup attempt and in the process, gave lucrative contracts to US consultancies and to some of Nicaragua’s richest families to promote anti – Sandinista opinion and instill anti – government practices. $(document).

ready(function(){(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({})}); Analysts affirm that “African nations should emulate Hungary’s stance on Western NGOs and throw them out as the Nicaraguan experience provides the evidence that they are actually self-servingly working against the African interests under the beguiling guise of working for the common good.

The population of Africa is young and numerous, which gives it an undeniable advantage over the rest of the world.”“If Africans do not get rid of neocolonial dependence now, they would lose their sovereignty and the opportunity to occupy a dignified place in the world in coming decades,” they added..

Mumuni writes from Zaria, Kaduna StateQuote: “A few weeks after the US freeze of foreign aid, the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced that the UK would fund increased spending on defense by cutting its aid budget from roughly 0.5 percent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent.

”• Mumuni writes from Zaria, Kaduna State $(document).ready(function(){(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).

push({})}); The post The West retreat from foreign aid appeared first on The Sun Nigeria..