The arrival of Donald Trump to the White House and its decision to end cooperation funds has felt like a earthquake that has shaken many countries Africa. Also thousands of lives. The American president has liquidated dozens of projects in areas as vital as the protection of the childhoodthe fight against likethe prevention of malaria or the reception of refugees. It has also left a long trail of layoffs in many organizations, including United Nations agencies, and has shaken the economic viability of many projects.
One of the president’s slogans, America first (America first), has been the great pretext of the new US Administration to liquidate USAID and other projects. Trump has defended on several occasions that his country does not have to allocate so much money to these causes, that this does not help Make America Great Again (make America great again) and demands that other governments allocate more money. His country was largest humanitarian donor of the world in 2024, with at least 38 % of all contributions recorded by United Nations.
USAID, created in the 1960s under the presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, has been the great aid program for developing countries and an important pillar of the soft diplomacy de Washington. Africaand especially the part of the continent that lies below the Sahara, has been the region that has received the most money from US cooperation: 12.7 billion dollars last year. The effects of cutting this program raise fears of the worst on the other side of the Atlantic. Many countries, such as Nigeria, Mozambique o Zimbabwedo not have the capacity for their public health systems to offer assistance to all the people who have been affected by the closure of this aid.
An article published in determines, according to various projection models, that the cuts “could cause more than 14 million additional deaths from now to 2030, with an average of more than 2.4 million deaths per year”, a study that covers all US cooperation projects in the world. They point out that “these figures include 4.5 million deaths among children under five years of age.”
HIV prevention and treatment
The funds for cooperation have marked a before and after, as will their reduction. They have made a key contribution to the reduction of cases of . For about 15 years they have achieved reduce and stabilize new cases thanks to prevention. Treatments have also become widespread. “USAID-supported interventions have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths across all age groups, including 30 million child deaths,” the same study recalls.
One of the most obvious examples of the immediate direct effects is the closure of more than 1,000 health points or centers in Africa, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). “These funding cuts have clear and immediate consequences (…) women giving birth without specialized care, people living with HIV without access to tests and treatments to stay alive, and survivors of violence rejected from the only clinic in their area,” explained Álvaro Bermejo, general director of this organization in ‘The Guardian’.
Experts are not just pointing fingers at Trump; other countries, such as France, Germany o United Kingdomhave also decided to make cuts in Official Development Assistance funds “for the first time in almost 30 years”, according to recent work in which they have participated . Experts who have worked on the research point out that cuts in global cooperation “could cause more than 22 million additional deaths between now and 2030, including 5.4 million children under five years of age.” These figures are higher than the deaths caused by the Covid pandemic between 2020 and 2021. “The sudden withdrawal of aid threatens to dismantle systems that have taken decades to build,” laments Davide Rasella, coordinator of the study.
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